Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Binkov's Battlegrounds"
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Look at history. Russia typically outnumbered Sweden 4 to 1 in most battles fought in the Great Northern War and Russia typically lost most of those battles and suffered 10 times higher losses than their opponent.
And the story is the same in most other wars as well. Russia got humiliated by Frederick the Great, they got humiliated by Finland in the winter war and the continuation wars, and the Germans humiliated Russia with the same catastrophic losses for russia in 1941 as seen in the battles in the Great Northern war.
So for Russia it is usual for them to suck. They always suck at war. Incompetent leadership, corruption, crappy doctrine, bad dicipline among the soldiers that rather spend time for rape and loot than focusing on combat, low willingness to fight among the soldiers, poorly maintained rusty old equipment, political meddling in the war effort, Putins nepotism, insecure communication...
well the reasons are many why I do not consider the russian military to be nothing but a mob and a barbarian horde.
It does not deserve to be called a professional force since it lacks professionalism, dicipline and skill.
Its year 2023 and the stone age barbarians in the east have not yet even invented the pallet for their logistical system.
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@AlexanderTch
Russia is a weak country which is why it constantly gets humiliated in every war it fights. It initially was able to steal some territory with its cowardly surprise attack but bit by bit is russia forced back. It retreated from the outskirts of Kyiv, then it was forced to retreat from Sumy, and then it was forced to retreat from Charkiv, and then it retreated from snake island, and the navy was forced away from the western black sea, and then it retreated and lost Khersun.
So russia once again gets humiliated on the battlefield like it have for most of the last 170 years... when it lost the Crimean war, lost the russo-japanease war, lost World war 1, lost the Polish-Bolshevik war, got humiliated in the winter war, suffered catastrophic and humiliating losses against Nazi-Germany in 1941-42 until lend lease help and US involvement could begin turn the tide of that war... but never the less would russia continue to suffer humiliation for the rest of world war 2 with its pathetic and bad performance against Finland in the continuation war. It later on lost the war in Afghanistan and it also lost the first Chechen war.
It is a worthless loser nation totally lacking military skill, and only have its large territory and a brutal disrepect for the value of a human life as it it is willing to waste its own soldiers lives in meat wave attacks. It is a country that needs help from other countries in a military alliance to beat a foe since it is too worthless to achieve anything on its own. It could not beat Hitler on its own, nor could it beat Napoleon, and not even the Swedes could it beat on its own.
And yes russia lose big wars - World war 1 is an example of that.
And this time around you get no lend lease help from a great power that could save your ass.
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@wzjzkldjskd
They won back terrain with their victory at Kyiv, they won it back near Sumy. They took back a large piece of land with their Charkiv offensive, they won back the strategically and symbolically important snake island, and they retook Khersun.
Right now have they punched a hole in the russian line. And while it is true that the frontline isn't moving, is it also true that russia is suffering disproportionatly heavy losses. You often see 40 artillery pieces per day getting destroyed. And without artillery will russia be unable to win this war in the long run. If things continue down this path, then will russia lose all their artillery (at least locally) and then will the remaining russian troops quickly get knocked out and their defence falls apart.
When that day come I will not be surprised to see large Ukrainian land gains.
It will be a severe blow to russian morale. And then it will be a question if russia will retreat or make a stubborn Stalinist "not a step backwards" policy. Either way is it not good for russia.
I also think that a bunch of long range missiles will severely reduce russias logistical effiency like the arrival of HIMARS did last year, altough in a less dramatic fashion. Russias stupid bumbling mass artillery doctrine needs massive stockpiles of centrally located artillery shells to work effectivly. But when a single missile can hit those ammunition depots that are sitting far behind the frontline, then will russias artillery get starved from lack of artillery shells.
And the little russia fires is not very effective compared to Ukrainian artillery because russian gunners have little training, they lack high precision ammunition, they lack counter-battery radars, their guns are more inaccurate, have shorter range, takes a longer time to reload and more often malfunction and fail to explode.
So Ukraine therefore have the upper hand.
It also have more tanks.
And without tanks and artillery support will infantry not fight very well. Especially not if they lack willingness to fight, lacks training, and are badly equipped. Making attacks under such circumstances is suicidal. But I expect Putin to waste his next wave of mobilized in this stupid manner like he did with the mobiks lives he gathered in autumn last year and threw away in a poorly handled winter offensive with little gains to show for it. Or his idiotic offensive towards Bakhmut that costed 100.000 russian soldiers their lives.
This meatwave attacks without support from artillery and tanks reminds me of russias attacks in world war1, or the attacks in world war 2 that resemble that in the movie enemy at the gates.
So I guess that russia never changes...
Well this idiocy did not work out well in russias wars the last 170 years. And I doubt it will work out well in this war either. So far it have only led to gigantic humiliating defeats.
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Not a single German solidier will be able to land his feet on British soil, since the US navy is stronger than all navies in the world combined - the US navy got more aircrafts than most all other navies combined. And only 1 aircraft carrier have more planes than most countrys airforces.
And EUs economy will self-destruct. Simply because the ECB is wrongly designed and cannot print money like the Federal reserve - which will result in deflationary crashes.
Furthermore is the EU banking system a ticking time bomb with its huge banks and reckless risktaking, non-existant regulation and non-transparancy.
And retarded rules like the convergence pact, the ban on capital controls, the 4 freedoms have made the EU economy unflexible, vulnerable to economic crashes, and it harms economic growth.
USA doesn't have any of those problems. The banking sector is however problematic, but US banks are much smaller, less risk taking and more regulated so the damages of an economic crash would be less severe to society.
EU on the other hand have no upsides at all compared to USA. EU doesn't have any oil, while USA is one of the largest oil producers. EUs economy have an ageing population, while USA is younger and the population in the anglosphere is larger so that the market of the English speaking world will be more important in the future than the EU.
USA is also self-substaining with fertilizer for its agriculture and it can get the phosphorus it needs from Florida. While none of the EU countries have anything of that, so that the EU needs to lick the ass of dictators (like Morocco) to get the resources it needs.
America also have more Fortune 500 companies than Europe. And those huge companies are key for technological leadership in the world.
And EU have nothing like DARPA, NASA, Silicon Valley, or Seattle.
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@mikaelpetersen3331
Sweden have owned Finland for 800 years. There are a large Swedish speaking minority there. Finland have only existed since 1917, but that does not make it a fake country. Because finnish speaking people have existed for thousands of years.
Just like Ukraine is a young country, but its people have existed for a thousand of years.
And just because we used to own Finland does not give us the right to take over that land by force, if they should be a part of sweden again it must be done with the support from the people who live in Finland.
Just like Russia cannot just grab Crimea which voted to leave russia and join Ukraine in 1991.
Russia claims so much bullcrap. They claim to be the protector of the russian speaking minority in Ukraine. But most russian speakers do not want their help. They don't want their cities destroyed by the russian army and see their neighbours murdered by russian troops.
Russian speaking cities in Ukraine such as
Charkiv, Odessa, Dnipro, Zaporizjzja and Mariupol are not grateful for russia invading their country - on the contrary are they filled with hatred towards russia for murdering so many of their countrymen, and all the torture, rapes, looting, kidnappings of children and destruction.
Russia fired rocket artillery on Mariupol and 200.000 civilians died as a result. That is how russia treats a russian speaking city.
So I can totally understand that nobody wants anything to do with russia. Crimea will be retaken, and ukrianians who had fled can return back. And the russians living on stolen land better just return home to where they came from.
Putins home on Crimea will of course be stolen, and it will be interesting to see what happens to it. If it becomes a shelter for homeless ukrainians or something else.
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In the first half year of Russias invasion did France with its 70 million people send half as much military aid to Ukraine than Estonia with 1 million people. This is how much France cares about Europes common security and solidarity with Eastern Europe who for years have felt threatened.
Macron seems more concerned about not humiliating Putin than what he is concerned with Russia starting one war of aggression after another, Russias bombings of kindergartens and 800 hospitals, or how russia have kindpapped and stolen 200.000 children from their parents, how they have destroyed cities like Mariupol and Bakhmut. How russia have made hitlists on people they planned to kill in order to get rid of Ukraines intelligentia and russify the country. France have no problem with massacres like Bucha and Irpin or the deliberate murder of 600 children in a bomb shelter... or the plunder and destruction of museums, or the theft of 600 airliners from western countries russia have done, or the fact that russia have built torture centrals - including torture cells for children, and they have regulary ignored the geneva convention...
France is okay with all that.
This is the kind of friend France is. Its siding more with Russia than with western countries like Poland, Estonia or Sweden.
So to hell with all pro-russian french politicians. And since all major names in French politics is pro-russian, I guess I have to say to hell with France.
Where is the freedom, brotherhood and equality in Putins russia that you love so much?
Where is the brotherhood to help Ukraine? Why shouldnt Ukrainians be free and not having to live under russian opression?
Who have decided that russia have the right to play the masterrace and rule over all countries in Eastern Europe? Why should the consent of Ukrainians, Georgians, Poles, Balts and such be ignored?
France should feel ashamed of itself for its russophile stance. And there is a long list of French companies that needs to be boycotted for helping Putin pay for his war and murder of civilians.
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"Germany, the UK, and France do nothing and pass the buck to the US"
Both France and Germany have been ramping up its weapon shipments to Ukraine lately and their shipments is quite huge.
"I have no desire for a war with Russia over a non-NATO country"
Ukraine was invaded and it have the right to defend itself according to the UN charter and international law. NATO is not at war. It is only assisting Ukraine. Russia have over and over again started imperialist wars with its neighbours only the last 20 years, so it is good that EU finally say that enough is enough. East European countries have complained in the past when Russia invaded Chechenya, Dagestan, Georgia, Crimea and Russia have poisoned foreign presidents, poisoned people in England, blown up arms depots in Czechia, shot down a Malaysian passanger plane, harmed western democracies with funding politicial extremists to create hatred and division in our societies and undermine our democracy and quality of life, they have wages cyber attacks on western companies... and the list goes on and on.
It is therefore about time that we strike back at Russia so they stop their aggressions towards the free world. If Russia refuses to leave us alone, then it must be taught how to do so the hard way. And the only language primitive barbarians understand is brute force. We have tried everything else now, and it was useless. Now we kill Russian invaders/genocidal child rapists / toilet thieves. We wreck their pathetic 3rd world economy. We diplomatically isolate them. And the Russians themselves do the rest of the job themselves for us to humiliate their own country to the entire world by showing how pathetic and useless their military is, and one can only laugh at their claim to be a superpower with their tiny economy and useless military.
"a non-NATO country that has spent most of its existence as part of Russia"
A total non-argument. Finland have belonged to Sweden for 800 years. They have only been an independent country for 100 years. I guess that this means that Sweden can just invade that country and you will say nothing.
Not even if we torture, mutilate and kill entire villages of people and throw them into mass graves. You will say nothing about a war of aggression either. And you will say nothing if we decide to deliberatly kill 600 children in bomb shelter, and when we decide to deliberatly target hospitals with artillery fire and white phosporus that burns through concrete and steel. And if we choose to also do all those things Russia do in Ukraine as well as targeting ambulances that helps people injured by our bombs...
then I guess a normal person would sympatize with Ukraine (or Finland in this case).
But not you. Your moral compass is broken.
Only a psychopath country are okay with those things. Those are the things that Russia stands for today.
Indeed, Russia has always been evil and barbaric. Its no wonder that the former Eastern bloc countries decided to join the EU and Nato. Holodomor, forceful deportations of balts, Prague 1968, Hungary 1956, the Chernobyl disaster is all what Russian rule gave them. So no wonder that they had enough.
As long as Russia does not respect borders I see no reason why I should respect Russia. I am happy that this warmongering terrorist state now is bleeding. It deserves it.
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Europe and the EU are NOT the same thing. Many European countries are not part of the EU: Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Ukraine, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, Montenegro.
Stop being so ignorant.
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@TGTexan
I think a recent post by Swedens largest military blogger is worth quoting:
Det mest använda och på många sätt det vapensystem som givit mest utdelning för Ryssland är artilleri. Efter att den första offensiven blev tillbakaslagen så har ryska arméns alla meningsfulla framgångar mer eller mindre gjorts genom lokal överlägsenhet av artillerield, en överlägsenhet som mer eller mindre sprang in i en vägg när HIMARs gjorde sitt intåg.
Estland uppskattade att Ryssland hade 17 miljoner granater vid krigsstarten, en siffra som grovt motsvarar Ukrainska uppskattningar och RUSI Report. Uppskattningsvis avfyrades 10 miljoner granater under 2022, och med nuvarande konsumtion så kommer man att avfyra 7 miljoner under 2023. Ryssland tillverkar mellan 250.000 och 1.000.000 granater per år, beroende på om man frågar Ukraina eller Ryssland.
Det antyder att Ryssland kommer få slut på sin ammunition tidigt 2024 om man fortsätter som man gjort hittills. Ryssland har dock ett extra förråd av artilleri-granater, nämligen Nordkorea. Enligt sprida offentliggjorda statliga rapporter (US primärt) så har Ryssland köpt miljontals granater av Nordkorea. Den bästa uppskattning jag kunnat hitta sätter toppsiffran på 3.000.000 granater.
Om det stämmer och om Ryssland inte kraftigt ökar sin ammunitionsproduktion (osannolikt) så kommer vi att få se en sänkning i intensiteten av rysk artillerield, antingen skarpt Q2 2024, eller gradvis under 2023. Jag har ingen direkt data på det, men anekdotiskt verkar man ha strypt mängden ammunition vid stora delar av fronten redan.
Eldrör är också en vanlig fråga då dessa verkar slitas ut i en hygglig takt, men Ryssland har enligt de källor jag hittat inte haft några problem hittills. De håller sannolikt längre än granater, så mer av det sovjetiska arvet finns sannolikt kvar.
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@mikakatzensuper0072 I think a short war would be difficult to win against UK (and a war against USA also would be a clear loss for EU).
First do you need to defeat the royal navy. And when that is done then you need to win in the skies so that your troop transport ships don't get blown up by aircrafts.
And then you need to fight against the coastal artillery. And even hastenly trained conscripts can cause lots of troubles for a beach landing... and you need to deal with bad weather, walking in the water while the enemy is firing upon you from prepared defensive posistions.. and then you got minefields to deal with.
I mean just 1 single German machine gunner managed to kill 2000 Americans in a single day at Omaha beach in 1944.
So amphibous operations are extremely difficult and the defenders have a huge advantage.
And even if the EU would succesfully take over a beach, then it would have the difficult job of trying to break out from the beach and take over more land.
The invasion army needs to take over a town with a big port, otherwise will the army starve to death by lack of food or soon run out of ammunition as they are trying to fight back British counter attacks.
And if EUs troops just sit on the beach with 2 million men like the Allies did in Normandy and have no port in their hands, then they will run the risk of losing the entire army when the winter comes.
Because then will the bad weather make air support much more difficult and supplying the troops on the beach by the sea will get increasingly difficult.
D-Day nearly ended in a disaster for the allies for that reason, because the allies were stuck on the beach for 2 months before they managed to roll up German defensive positions and conquer some French ports so that supplies could be moved in.
Being a defender is simply much more easy when it comes to amphibious landings. You don't need to worry about supplies, you can have prepared defensive positions, and you have somewhere to retreat. And you don't need superiority both on land, sea, and sky. And you will also have it much easier to bring in reinforcements to beat back an invasion force, than what an invasion force can bring in supporting troops for their landing.
And I also assume that the British also have the benifit of better knowing the terrain then their enemy. And that they can figure out what places are likely places for an invasion and prepare defences there - I mean I guess the EU are not complete moron idiots that would land their troops on a unsuitable terrain out in place that is so far away that EUs aircrafts would not have the range to support them.
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Britain might be divided too, among brexiteers, remainers and scots. But I think the country would unite under the pressure from a common enemy, the same way USA and UK put aside class warfare conflicts and become 'one people' during world war 2.
But the EU on the other hand is a fragile construct with too many internal conflicts - west vs. East on immigration, North vs. South in economic issues and farm subsidies, Federalist Germany and France vs. non-federalist Hungary and Sweden.
And on top of that do you got ethnic nationalism on the rise in Catalonia. And nationalist parties are on the rise everyware in Europe which is threating the very idea of a globalist Europe.
You got Salvini in Italy, Kurz in Austria, AFD in Germany, Orban in Hungary, Vox in Spain, Åkesson in Sweden, nationalists in Estonia and Latvia, Nationalism is also on the rise in France, Belgium, Greece, and the Netherlands. And in Denmark, and Finland.
Countries have had enough of globalism. And a war of aggression can be the last that breaks the camels back.
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Ignorant comment by OP. PZH2000, HIMARS, Archer, Caesar, Krab, M270 are all the best artillery pieces in the world one can get. Ukraine is also given the worlds best air defence systems in the world from Sweden and Germany and the best counter battery artillery radars. And Ukraine also got things such as Bonus and Excalibur artillery shells with extreme precision. And then we got modern missiles such as brimstone, starstreak, javelin, HARM, NLAW, and powerful anti-tank weapons such as panzerfaust 3 which can penerate 800mm armor which is enough to crack any tank in the world.
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@Freeliner75
"am I willing to lose, say, a third of my well-being and income to achieve the victory in Ukraine"
You are taking numbers out of your ass.
Swedens economic and military aid to ukraine have been large, and indeed I don't think any country have donated such a large portion of modern military equipment as Sweden (CV90, Leopard2, Archer, Robot70) and yet have this aid only amounted to 20 billion kronor in military aid and 20 billion in economic aid.
All in all 40 billion over two years, or 20 billion per year.
So 20 billion out of our GDP of 6000. That is not much. Its not a third of your income unless you analphabet in mathematics. Its more like 1 Swedish crown per 300 - or 0.3%.
"to achieve the victory in Ukraine"
If you do allow russia to win now, you will only have to pay more money in the future as dictators will only start new wars after they have seen that they can get away with crime unpunished.
Russia will continue with unprovoced wars of aggression and genocide like they have done previously in Chechenya and Georgia. And grabbing Crimea didn't end their lust for stealing even more Ukrainian lands. If Ukraine falls, will there be a genocide and opression of the people of Ukraine. Lists of people that the russians planned to kill had their invasion of ukraine been succesful would have meant a murder of thousands of influential Ukrainians, in an attempt by russia to try to russify the area and extreminate ukrainian culture and national identitity.
Would you be okay with accepting genocide?
Furthermore russia have already attacked Georgia in the past with the same silly arguments they used to attack Ukraine - that Georgia is ruled by nazis, that the russian minority in Georgia must be protected from genocide, and that russia have all right to take back historical lands.
So of course will russia attack Moldavia with the same arguments and Georgia.
And China might feel inspiration to attack Taiwan if they see that people in the west are like you and do not defend what is right or what is wrong.
And defend truth over lies. And defend freedom and democracy against russo-fascist opression.
If every goddamn dictator in the world wants to invade their neighbour like russia - then I think we are creating a much bigger problem in the future and walk a dangerous path towards a potential world war or nuclear war.
But by supporting Ukraine we are setting an example to dictators what happens if they try to redraw borders with military force.
We will get more law and order and stability in the world after an Ukrainian victory.
And economic development of the world will be helped.
Cheap ukrainian food, oil, coal, nuclear power, iron, and natural gas will compete with russian resources and drive down prices and make life less expensive for westerners.
I think that would be a better thing than letting those resources fall into the hands of a dictator that have time and time again proven that he is willing to use energy blackmail against the west and surely like to get more energy resources into the hands of russia so his ability to charge high monopoly prices against the west will increase, and his ability to energy blackmail us will increase even more.
Russia is a criminal terrorist state that cannot be trusted. We have already given Ukraine lots of help and they have done half the job of kicking the russkies out. So we might just as well help them to do the remaining job to finish them off.
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The problem is that we don't have the same national priorities and never ever will, and the EU is not a solution to this problem either because this is how things will always be.
Some countries are not interested in colonialism, while that is the most important thing for France. Some countries have different terrain, different potential enemies, different climate, different size of their wallets, different size of their populations - so of course do all countries in Europe have different opinions what the best tank should be like.
A rich country like USA with much oil and money to afford a large logistical organisation for its military will of course like a fuel thirsty expensive tank that needs enormous amounts of maintance, and they like aircrafts that are expensive hangar queens.
While other countries like Germany prefers Leopard2 that is easier to maintain, but the tank is a little bit weaker in firepower and armor.
France does not care about the russian threat because they only care about fighting in africa against people with spears so they do not care so much about firepower or armor for their vehicles, but instead do they want vehicles that are fast.
A country like Ukraine would probably want a tank with wide tracks that can travel over muddy fields without getting stuck. While a country like Sweden wants armored vehicles that can drive through deep snow - so they prefer CV90 over Bradley for that reason.
And both Ukraine and Sweden takes the threat of Russia very seriously, while countries like Spain and France do not worry about getting invaded by Russia.
And then you have military doctrine that also impacts tank design. Germany think it is important to have tanks that can drive back just as fast as they can drive forward - while countries like russia do not care about this ability.
A country like russia wants tanks with autoloaders so they can have fewer men inside their tanks, and one benifit of that is that this also saves manpower that they can use in the frontline as foot soldiers.
Israel is a country with a very small population that cannot afford to lose much blood and meat when it is fighting against its many much larger arab neigbours. So their tanks puts an extreme priority on crew safety to minimize the risk that tankers die in battle.
But building tanks this way do also mean that their tanks might getting more expensive than they otherwise would be. And Merkava is a tank much criticisized for its low top speed, which is on the other hand considered a non-problem by others.
So building weapons is usually a game of making trade offs. And when a country have extremely different wishes than other countries it will become difficult to design a weapon that makes everyone happy. France do have needs that is much different from those of Germany, Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia so of course it will be alone in much of the weapons it makes.
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@MrBahjatt
The Poles were fed up with having to wait years before getting any tanks, and Germanys pathethic witholding of tanks to Ukraine have made Leopard2 a non-option for Poland - so they bought American and Korean instead.
I don't know the motivation of Poland to buy F16 in this specific case. But to me it seems like Scandinavian countries have bought F35 for political reasons (to get closer ties and protection from USA) rather than buying a weapon for the sake of its performance - as I think that Gripen E would make much more sense for countries like Finland and Norway.
Sweden have however bought NH90 from France-Germany-Spain-Italy-Netherlands... and the helicopter is not just ridiculously expensive but also worthless performance wise and demanding ridiculous amounts of maintence. Had I been prime minister I would give those helicopters away for free to russia as military aid, as they are more of a burden to own than an asset.
I don't oppose the idea of buying more European weapons in Europe - and with that I do not just mean weapons built by companies 100% located inside the EU, but also companies that cooperate with other European defence firms like BAE systems in UK. And cooperation with USA is not much of a problem either since she is an ally and a friend, ans should be treated as such.
If European countries should buy European products, then those weapons needs to be good and not overpriced junk like NH90. European soldiers should not have to die to guarantee profits for french fat cat industries, if there are better American weapons available that can help soldiers fight better.
And all EU countries have different needs, and not many countries are interested in French equipment designed for expeditions in Africa. So those countries should have other options available. And if no such options exist, then they should be able to buy American weapons instead.
I for my part see that French, German, British and American equipment often lacks the requirements needed to be suitable in Scandinavian terrain for example. That doesn't mean those countries make bad stuff, it just means that their weapons will not work well in a Scandinavian context. Bradley cannot handle deep snow as well as CV90 for example.
But otherwise do Sweden use much kit from those countries like the Swedish-French-British Meteor missile, the British Swedish Archer artillery or NLAW, or the German Leopard 2 tanks, and American Patriot.
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@rodi8266
I don't know any other country in history that war after war lose its way towards victory. Russia became a great power during the Great Northern war - a war in which they lost battle after battle despite outnumbering their enemy 3 to 1, and suffered disprortionally heavy losses, and yet they came out winning.
Russia a few years later also lost hundreds of thousands of men fighting Ottomans and Persians and won.
For most other 18th century powers would such losses be unbareable.. Prussia or Sweden could not afford to lose that many men in a single campaign.
The Napoleonic wars meant scorched earth policies and more lands were sacrificed to the enemy than any other country could afford doing. No other country would be willing to burn down so many of its own villages as Russia.
But victory came, but at a high cost.
So the Russians can win wars despite being ineffective and incompetent in combat.
The crimean war was the result of the usual Russian aggression we see throughout history, and the countrys leader throw Russia into a war with troops with outdated equipment and took heavy losses as a result and the war gave Russia nothing aside from lots of death and suffering.
The Russo-japanese war showed that Russia was not so brilliant at war - a great power lost against a developing country in Asia. The first world war was mostly caused by the Russian Tsar. And despite having gigantic manpower reserves (26 million) compared to other countries, where the country with the 2nd largest was Germany with 6 million... so was Russia unable to perform well in this war.
Russias industrial base was once again too weak - just like in the Crimean war - and many soldiers did not even have rifles so they had to attack German lines without weapons and take up the rifle of a dead comrade if they wanted to fight - just like in the movie enemy at the gates. Russian troops came from such a backward and barbaric country that they thought that evil spirits killed men after Germany had bombared their lines with poison gas.
And the Russian artillery lacked artillery shells and German artillery got a larger ration of shells in half a week than Russian artillery got in an entire month... so after 1915 would Russian guns almost fall silent because they lacked ammunition. So now could those Russian soldiers with few rifles not even get any help from cannons.
But Russias leaders did still not give up. Instead were millions of men sacrificed and the war was later on lost for Russia.
The next fiasco was the Russian invasion of Poland. Russia and Japan fought a war which it for once managed to win, but only thanks to superior numbers and fighting against a 3rd world country with a very limited supply of heavy weapons.
Russia would then go on with invading Finland in 1939 a suffering humiliating heavy losses despite fighting against the poorest country in Europe with an enormous numerical superiority and massive numbers of tanks and planes. While the Finns started the war with no real tanks at all.
The war against Germany led to the most catastrophic losses any country in history has ever suffered in war. Russia lost millions of men. The worlds largest airforce was wiped out in the first 2 weeks of the war. Russia lost more tanks in 1941 than most countries in the world had combined.
The Russian army was ineffective and incompetent. And it won only thanks to its numerical superiority. Germany had no oil, no lend lease, no war at only 1 front but instead it had a 5 front war (in Africa, in the west, in the east, in the skies, and in the seas). Once again could Russia win a war despite suffering gigantic losses compared to its enemy.
Russia would later on once again show its military ineffectivness in Afghanistan and Chechenya - wars which it lost.
So Russia is one of the shittiest countries when it comes military competence. And its logistical system is just a mess.. and when you see tankers going out on the countryside and begging for fuel you begin to wonder if Russian logistics exist at all.
If any other country would try the Russian way of war it would quickly bleed to death and lose the conflict.
I consider the Russian military to be the most overly hyped force in the world. Especially after the end of the cold war. Russia is a country with a GDP the size of Spain and its technologically backwards compared to the west.
If it didn't have nukes I don't think that other countries would be afraid of going to war with it and giving it a bloody nose. And as the barbaric evil bully throughout history, it really deserves some hard spanking.
Russia is in a decline. Populationwise and otherwise.
And without manpower is the Russian way of war doomed. And without its military power is Russia nothing.
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@BojanPeric-kq9et
Hyperinflation happens in third world countries with a socialist regime, or in countries that have been war torn.
It does not happen to modern industrialized economies where production capacity is high. And especially not in a country with a strong global reserve currency with an extremely high international demand.
And it is true that some people have been over-optimistic about the sanctions effect on the russian economy. However I do not consider those people to be stupid necessarily given russias history of having a fragile economy. No other economy had such a large stock market and GDP drop as russia during the financial crisis. And the effects of a low oil price, the war in Afghanistan and the Chernobyl disaster plus some inherited structural problems of the eastern bloc economy from the 1970s did break the russian economys back and some consider it to have strongly contributed to the fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet union.
I dont think we will see any 1917 event in russia because of the sanctions and war. ButI think the russian economy is spiraling downwards, and using currency reserves and capital controls will not work forever. Especially not when fighting an expensive war that consume large amounts of money each month.
To me it seems economic pain rather comes slowly, but on the other hand may it start to cut deep. Sanctions, braindrain, dead young men, falling birthrates, lost export markets, and lost expensive special equipment like submarines and awacs planes will be extremely difficult to replace.
Rebuilding the military will take decades.
And the more russia prospone its transition over to a modern manufacturing industry economy - the harder and costlier will it get.
And selling raw materials is not good as terms of trade vs high value knowledge intensive manufacturing goods just falls all the time.
So russia will only get less and less for the oil, timber, and gold it sells. And the little manufacturing that are being done is done with weapons - and this war is not good for exports.
So yea i believe in a bear market for russias part.
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@limedickandrew6016
"Swedens Army was almost wiped out to a man"
You are talking nonsense. Sweden did even late in the war have a large army, and the recruits were not old men and young children but military aged males which can be seen in for example in the Swedish invasion army used against Norway in 1718.
And russias victory happened only because King Charles died in battle in Norway - had he not died would likely Fredrikstens fortress have fallen 3 days later as the garrison was nearly completly out of supplies - and with that fortress out of the way would there be no obstacle left standing between the Swedish army and Oslo. Trondheim in the north was also under siege and only had 2 weeks of supplies left according to Norwegian historians. So all of Norway was basically about to fall when the Swedish King died.
And had Norway fallen into Swedish hands would Denmark be forced out of the war and having to sign a peace on Swedish terms. And the Swedish army could then be moved to Germany, where the tiny Hanovarian army with 7000 low quality troops would be no match for the battlehardened Swedish army. And Hanover would be forced to sign a peace on Swedish terms. The next step would then be to invade the undefended baltics. And their loss would mean that the russian troops would be forced to leave Finland - as the russian army otherwise would starve to death as the road network in Finland was in a too poor condition to be able to support a large army of tens of thousands of men.
And if russias army in Finland could not import food from russia by land or sea, then it would be either forced to retreat or to plunder the local population, but Finland was such a poor country that even if it was plundered 100% it still not be able to upkeep large russian forces there - so a russian retreat would have been unavoidable. So in one blow would russia lose all its gains after 20 years of war, as both the Baltics and Finland would fall back into Swedish hands. And Russia would once more be standing without allies, and its population would be tired of a never ending war. And England would become more interested in intervening into the war on the Swedish side with the Hanovarian King out of the way.
If russia wanted to drag on the war there would be a risk of civil war because of the war exhaustion, and Ottomans, Saxons, Poles, Prussians and Brits were all potential enemies of russia at this point of time.
So it would be wise for Peter to just settle for peace instead of continuing a never ending war.
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@limedickandrew6016
"According to Wikipedia, Russian dead was 295,000, for Sweden it was 200,000. Hardly 4 to 1."
Murdering civilians to compensating for the inability to make good results on the battlefield is a typical russian thing.
You can look at wikipedia at the loss ratio the russian army suffered battle after battle.
They outnumbered the Swedes 4 to 1 in the battle of Narva, 37.000 Russians vs 10.500 Swedes, and yet they still managed to lose 9000 men and get 20.700 men captured and 177 cannons fell into enemy hands. While the Swedes only suffered 667 dead.
A few months later in 1701 came the battle of Düna. The Russian and Saxon forces outnumbered Sweden 2 to 1, and had an advantageous defensive position, as the Swedes had to do a river crossing.
And yet Russia lost the battle with 1300 dead and 700 men captured. While Sweden lost 100 dead.
And next came the battle of Rauge in 1701, where 7000 Russians faced 2000 Swedes. The battle ended with 50 Swedes killed, while Russia lost the battle with 2000 men killed, wounded or captured.
The next humiliation was the battle of Saločiai in 1703. Here 6000 Russians face 1,100 Swedes. The battle ended with a Russian loss of 1500 men killed and over a thousand flags and banners falling into enemy hands.
Sweden lost 40 men killed.
(How is this even f**king possible to be this bad in the age of pikes, bayonets, muskets??)
In 1704 did a Russo-Polish force of 15.000 men get beaten up by a Swedish force of 3000 men plus 2000 Lithuanians at the battle of Jakobstadt.
Sweden won the battle with 238 men dead, while the Russo-Polish side lost 2300 men dead and 500 men were captured.
In 1705 there was the battle of Gemauerthof; 7000 Swedes faced a Russian force of between 13.000 or 20.000 men. Sweden won the battle with 1900 men casualties, while Russian losses numbered 5000.
In 1706 did a Russo-Saxon force of 20.000 men go to battle against 9400 Swedes in the battle of Fraustadt.
Sweden won the battle with 400 men killed, while the Russian and Saxon losses were 7377 dead, and 7,900 captured.
In January 1708 did a Swedish force of 800 men attack a Russian force of 9000 men, in the battle of Grodno. Sweden won the battle losing 11 men killed and Russia had 150 of their men killed and 50 men captured.
In 1708 was the battle of Holowczyn, 12,500 Swedes went into battle against a Russian force 28.000-40.000 men strong. The battle ended with a Swedish victory with 265 men killed, while Russian losses numbered 2000 men.
This dangerous river crossing by Swedish forces, became the favorite victory of the Swedish King Charles XII.
And as you see, had the Swedes already won many battles by then.
A few weeks later was it time for the battle of Malatitze. A 5000 men strong Swedish force faced 13.000 Russians. Sweden won the battle, losing 1050 men killed or wounded, while Russia lost 2,700 men killed or wounded.
Then a month later came the battle of Rajovka in september 1708. 2.400 Swedes fought against 10.000 Russians. Sweden won the battle, and lost 100 men killed while Russia lost 375 men killed.
In 28th of January 1709 was the battle of Oposhnya, where 2000 Swedes fought against 6000 Russians. The battle ended with a Swedish victory. 19 Swedish men were lost while Russia lost 450.
12 days later came the battle of Krasnokutsk–Gorodnoye. 2.500 Swedish riders went to battle against a Russian force of about 5000 to 10.000 men strong. The battle ended with a Swedish victory, with 132 Swedish men lost while Russia lost 1200.
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@mikakatzensuper0072 The EU is stagnent. Only Haiti and Zimbabwe have performed worse than Italy since it joined the EU.
Income inequality, has increased in
Britain since EEC entry in 1973 – as it has in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The same pattern holds for Austria, Spain, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden.
We have seen the Euro crisis caused by the Euro currency and the stupid abolishment of capital controls. And that have resulted in economic disasters in Spain, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Portugal.
And even among the "winners" within the EU have development been negative. Germany have been able to steal jobs and GDP growth from southern Europe thanks to their advantage of lower wages. And the German government have done this deliberatly by cutting welfare programs and thereby forcing people into poverty and desperation to accept any low wages any company would offer its desperate workers. And the result have of course been rising inequality and poverty in Germany.
And what are other countries forced to do then when German companies outcompete them and steal their jobs?
- They too are of course forced to also lower their wages like the Germans did by creating unemployment and cutting welfare programmes and forcing people into povery and desperation.
And that is what the EU stands for. It rather have poverty and desperation than protectionism and a little bit of inflation. The EU hates you if you are a worker, or if you are poor, or unemployed, or sick.
The EU is shooting itself in the foot. When it makes people poorer, then nobody will be able to buy the products that companies make, and then they will need to shut down production and fire workers.
And when more workers get unemployed, then even less people will be able to buy any products... and so this vicious circle goes round and round.
And the EU handle every area of the economy with this destructive incompetence. And common sense and working solutions are always sacrificed on the altar of the idea of a United Europe.
The tax system is another such thing that the EU sucks at. The low tax countries are stealing companies and rich peoples money from other EU countries so that they get big holes in their government budgets.
So to fill those budget holes they need to raise taxes on the poor and those who cannot afford to pay an expert to do tax evasion for them.
And countries like Ireland can act as a parasite on other EU countries and steal companies that other countries have spent decades to built up.
So what is the EUs solution to the problem that it itself created with the free movement of money and removal of capital controls?
- The EUs solution is to force all EU countries to introduce a minimum tax rate.
So the EU fucks things up for everyone. It makes it impossible for countries to maintain a high tax welfare state even if the voters would want it. And it also makes it impossible for countries that want super low taxes to have it.
The EU hates everyone.
The EU once again hates workers and the poor, since they are the ones who have seen their taxes been going up the last 30 years, while the rich and big companies pays almost no taxes at all now, despite their profits are bigger than ever, and wages have been falling for the last 30 years.
So the EU have fucked up the economy. And it have made life a misery for ordinary people. Only rich aristocrats got any reason to like the EU.
Personally do I prefer the American tax system which is the opposite of the European. I want low taxes on incomes so hard work gets rewarded. And I want higher taxes on inheritance, on rents, capital gains, housing and high corporate taxes.
The US system rewards hard work, meritocracy and discourages useless speculation that pushes up housing prices. And low taxes on labour also makes the country more competative on the world market.
While the EU system does the opposite.
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@DefinitelyNotEmma
"Ah yes comparing 1776 with muskets and all vs 2023 with mass produced main battle tanks, artillery barrages, land mines and loitering munitions."
If we compare the economies of the west (USA, EU, UK, Australia, Canada, Norway) with russia we see the west being 25 times larger. There is no way russia can win an industrial war if the west invest its political will to outproduce it.
"The only way that Ukraine can win such a war of attrition is either by utilizing foreign recruits"
And your argument is just total nonsense.
Ukraine is a large country. Its as large as France was in world war 1, when France was among the most powerful countries on the planet. It endured 1,4 million of men lost in World war 1 and kept on fighting.
So even if Ukraine would have suffered 300.000 dead like russia would Ukraine still have lots of men left it could spend.
However personally I think that Ukraines losses are much lower than those of russia.
Russia is reckless and do not care about its own soldiers lives so it happily spend them in the most wasteful ways.
Its incompetence is also staggering. And the quality of russian military healthcare is also garbage - which means that russian soldiers are more likely to die from their wounds than ukrainian soldiers. And light wounds have to wait for treatment and turns into severe injuries that makes russian troops unable to return to combat.
So for good reason would I not be surprised if Ukrainian losses are just 25% of those russia have suffered.
But as I said earlier, even if we take the extremely unlikely assumption that Ukrainian losses are just as heavy as the russian ones will Ukraine be able to fight this war for years.
Ukraine have millions of men and women in military age. And if they would mobilize 25% of their 40 million people they would be able to field an army of 10 million men.
And losing 300.000 men out of 10 million is easily absorable.
So this war will not be determined by how many men die. Almost no war in history is determined that way. Only ruskies completly ignorant of history seems to think so ;)
Reality however is that this war like all other war is a contest of will. Is russia willing to accept say 5 million dead soldiers for two tiny eastern provinces Donetsk and Luhansk?
- I don't think so.
Are Ukraine willing to fight very hard for freedom, self-determination, and to avoid russian genocide and opression?
- Yes I do. Ukrainian soldiers feel motivated to fight and to risk their own lives, they fight a war against evil.
And russian soldiers do not feel much entusiansm at all for the war. Millions of russian men dodging the draft, russian men are posting videos every week complaining about military life, lack of payment, lack of weapons and lack of training, and the extreme losses at the front, and drunken leadership.
All this are not good signs for the future of russias war effort. And the assaniation of the Wagner group and the arrests of Girkin and Navalny is also making Putin unpopular among the war hawks.
As I see it is this war a lost cause for russia.
Putin should have accepted a peace deal in April last year, when the appeasement faction in the west still had the upper hand and russia still had strong forces at its disposal. Putin could have begun mobilization early, and as his professional army was not yet wiped out he still had a chance to train his mobilized troops to make them more useful in battle.
But Putin squandered all those chances, and now his game is lost.
He probably also hoped his energy blackmail would crush the west last winter, but a warm winter and plus Chinas covid lockdown that decreased global demand for energy and led to cheaper energy prices world wide destroyed Putins plans. And the west have mostly fulfilled its energy transition away from russia. Indeed, Germany succeeded very early, and was no longer dependent on russian gas months before the winter even started according to the Guardian.
So now it seems like russia have no aces left up its sleeve. Putin only makes wishful thinking that somehow his boyfriend Trump will save him.
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Russia started this war with a numerical advantage and with help from Belarus. However losses have been significant and the mobilization is putting more Ukrainians in the field. Logistical issues and mud have prevented Russia from capitalize on its advantage of professional troops and material superiority. Ukraines surprisingly determined defence and its skillful professionalism in ambushes and Ranger warfare behind enemy lines attacking supply trucks have also been significant.
Western anti-tank missiles and the failed Russian air superioty are also significant game changers.
Russian numerical superiority or not will I say that a long war will be a tough campaign for Russia. 100-200k extra conscripts will not replace the loss of professional soldiers. Crappy unupgraded Russian tanks cannot replace the 370 or 600 or so tanks lost which were upgraded and the best Russia had.
Conquered equipment have further contributed so change of balance of power here.
I think Russia can accept more losses, and Putin wants to save face and his own career. So losing the war is unacceptable to him. The problem however is that more Russian tanks and men thrown into battle will likely not solve anything.
Its one thing to mobilize a new army, and its another thing to equip it. And if logistics and maintance was terrible in the army he sent into Ukraine in the end of february - then wait until you see the underequipped demotivated conscript junk army he have called in to replace it.
And if logistics was a problem for the old army, then adding the problems with an additional new army and even crappier equipment will only make bad things worse.
Ukrainians are more determined to fight than ever. Emboldened by their success and their hatred of Russian warcrimes will make surrender unthinkable to them. And as I said earlier, green forests will create more hideouts for Ukrainian Rangers and special forces to cause devestation behind enemy lines. And the further back behind enemy lines - the less counter fire from the Russians will there be.
And if Ukrainian propaganda is true that much long range SAMs have been stolen from the Russians then I think odds have become even more even in the material sense. Sanctions on Russia have made reparing damaged vehicles impossible and harm Russias economic ability to fight a long war as well as creating problems at maintaining public support for the war.
In itself this is perhaps much of a problem, but if Russia continues to humiliate itself, suffer heavy losses and got no major successes to show for it - then Putin will have reason to fear the survival of his regime.
It remains to be seen how far the west is willing to go to defend Ukraine. Sending MLRS from Britain is probably the furthest step I know of so far.
However cutting off trade with oil and gas completly is not a step EU or Russia seems likely to wanna take as it would likely mean mutually assured destruction of each others economy. Think of the oil price shock of 1973 hitting Europe again. With massive inflation, unemployment, falling GDP and global economic economic crash that will follow. Inflation goes up and so does interest rates and unemployment. Overindebted households cannot pay their debts and lose their homes. Higher interest rates also means less money over for consumption, which means less sales for companies, lower profits and companies are forced to fire workers.
Stupid Germany have painted itself into a corner, and it will take at least 10-15 years before Germany and Italy get rid of their energy independence on Russia.
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@MrMadSNAV I just conclude that I hate almost everything that Germany stands for.
You like censorship (article13, laws against flag burning, arrest people for having anti-immigration opinions in closed forums on facebook, you have government that wants to censor fake news, and Austria says that blasphemy is not allowed). Am I clear enough?
You are the most politically correct insane people in Europe. The green party is communists, AFD is a useless reactionary party born out of Germans very conservative values regarding family life and such - which is another retarded thing about your country... rape within marriage only became illegal as late as 1997, which says a lot. Merkel have been pushing for censorship all over Europe, she pushed for the "chock doctrine" all over Europe, she hates even moderate forms of patriotism (her throwing away of the German flag comes to mind) and she saved the Lisbon treaty and pushed it on all countries on Europe despite people had voted upon it and rejected it.... so the Conservatives in Germany are retards.
And the Socialdemocrats are even worse... they wish to destroy all independent countries in Europe and erase all their history with their "United States of Europe” by 2025".
With a German led Europe is my own country at great danger. You destroy other countries economies. You like to take away other people their independence for the stupid EU project, because it all fun for you when you sit in the driving seat, but as soon as another country makes claims on you - like USA - then you feel butthurt like the hypocrites you are.
You expect us other EU countries to side with you, but we don't. We don't like your values. We don't care about a country that is arrogant and don't care to listen to smaller countries. And we don't like hypocrites.
If Germany cannot follow its budget rules, then it have no right to complain when Greece doesn't do so either.
The EU now stores user data on every webpage all "citizens" (aka "serfs" and "subjects") visits thanks to Angela Merkel because she is fun to spy on people even if they have not commited any crime...(its a typical German nazi-DDR tradition I guess).... and then Merkel gets upset like the hypocrite she is when the USA does the same thing to her as she does to others when CIA taps her phone calls.
She got no right to complain as long as she is pro Orwellian bullshit herself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive
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@benoitbvg2888
Strong economies benifit from free trade, while weak economies needs protectionism. Britains economy is in the latter category, so it would therefore need say no to the common market and protect its own industry and build it up to fit for fight again.
Reality is that all countries all countries are strong in some areas and weaker in others. Not even China that is the largest exporter in the world wants 100% free trade - because it is weak in some areas and wants to protect those specific industries from foreign competition.
Britain have a potential in many areas. And instead of importing materials from foreign producers, it could just buy things from British firms instead. This is a strategy called "import substitution", and it succesfully turned poor countries like Japan and Korea into some of the richest countries in the world.
Britain could also do this and create its own cement and military lorries instead of importing it from abroad for roughly the same price.
This would in turn provide British producers with a secure home market, and the negative balance of trade will turn around bit by bit. And instead of letting British industry die, it will have a chance to grow at home, and then in the future it could be strong enough to take on competition from even the best foreign producers.
"Why on Earth would anyone build in Britain when building in the EU is just so much simpler and gives you access to a much bigger market, without currency fluctuation???"
Britain is still one of the largest markets in the world, and it would be foolish to say no to all profits that could be made there.
You also don't need a big home market to be able to export things, and there are many historical examples of this... Sweden is just a country with roughly 8 million inhabitants but it became the richest country in the world in the late 1960s many decades before it joined the EU.
And Sweden despite its size became one of the major players in producing mobile phones, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, drilling tools and Industrial machinery, military equipment, civilian nuclear power, paper, steel, and timber.
And Sweden is by no means unique. Switzerland, Finland and Singapore have also gotten rich without any EU.
And having your own currency is a good thing. It enables you to create money to grow your own economy. It can be a tool the UK can use to help save its companies and jobs when the country is doing badly (as it have been doing the last decades).
The Euro is a badly constructed currency. The central bank refuses to print money to fund government spending - unlike the Federal reserve in the USA.
And that means that the economy will stagnate from permanent deflationary spiral.
And the EU rules for member countries to have a low national debt and a low budget surplus will only make this problem even worse.
And the ECB only cares about the goal of low inflation, and caring about low unemployment or high GDP growth is not in its mandate.
And my final point would be that it is better to have a central bank that cares about Britains needs, than Britain should have a central bank that only care about the needs of the German economy.
Germany and Britain are not the same country. So it would simply be idiotic to have the same rate of inflation and interest rate.
"One size fits all" would be a stupid idea if you would try to have the same size of clothes for 28 randomly collected persons off the street. So why would any one then think that doing the same with 28 different countries economies would be a good idea?
Only a stupid politician would believe in such stupid shit. Because more than 90% of all economists agree that this is an extremely stupid idea.
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@ashfox7498
The Russian economy continues to bleed from the war and sanctions, and now the harvest and autumn sowing are threatened by a diesel shortage. It may seem counterintuitive that mafia-run gas station Russia would suffer a diesel shortage, but the country needs every ruble it can sell its primary source of income for. The export of diesel together with a lack of spare parts and maintenance, as well as of course the dynamic effects of the war means that the harvest and autumn sowing in Russia are threatened. The Russian propaganda agency Interfax has even concluded that the export of oil products (diesel, gasoline, aviation fuel, etc.) to agriculture needs to be re-directed.
At succesful farming you can read an article about this topic, with the headline:
"Russian farm minister says fuel shortages threaten harvest and sowing"
And the article text begins:
"Russian Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev said on Wednesday that fuel shortages threaten to disrupt autumn harvesting and sowing and urged a suspension of petroleum product exports, Interfax news agency reported."
and lower down the text you can read:
"Traders said the fuel market has been hit by a combination of factors including maintenance at oil refineries, bottlenecks on railways and the weakness of the rouble, which incentivizes fuel exports."
So all those Soviet nostalgics now seems to get what they all dreamed for, as breadlines are coming back to russia.
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I guess expensive equipment dies off just like the battlehips did. It quickly became obvious in World War 2 that those dinosaurs with big guns and thick armor had no chance against planes, submarines and torpedos.
So after the war did navies build ships the size of destroyers or smaller that could carry torpedos, as big artillery gun platforms had become obsolete. Faster, cheaper, smaller hard to hit ships with torpedos became the new prefered weapon at sea. And in the 1960s did those torpedo boats start to become obsolete as USSR began building the worlds first small fast boats armed with anti-ship missiles.. and Russia shortly spammed out over 200 of those small ships.
I think that was the final nail in the coffin for battleships and cruisers.
And it now seems like drones are eating up more and more of airplanes and helicopters roles. They are cheaper and you do not risk getting pilots killed. And you can get instant images for correcting artillery fire with them so you do not have to risk the lives of pilot flying a piper cub to correct artillery fire like in World war 2.
Helicopters were vulnerable already in Vietnam, but if there ever was a war in which they should have been succesful, then it should have been there as anti-helicopter counter-measures were in its infancy there and the 3rd world country Vietnam had very limited abilities to challange US airpower on its own.
The huey Cobra became a cool new addition to the US military and could bring much fire power to escort transport helicopters and support ground troops. But they were still of course fragile things with no armor. And against an opponent with lots of anti-aircraft systems it would result in a bloodbath for the helicopters - like what happened during the invasion of Laos when the military insisted on support from helicopters rather than fast moving aircrafts with bigger payloads and which were faster flying and harder to hit.
I think that the helicopter airmobile division concept became a dissapointment in this war. People dreamt that it would revolutionize warfare as troops now could quickly move in 3 dimensions and get behind enemies and quickly close encirclements or reposition artillery pieces.
But this helicopter unit was weak as helicopters could not carry too much heavy equipment and supplies. And helicopters were easy to shot down and they needed landing zones to drop the drops, and in the early years in the war did the US military lack ideas in how they quickly could create new such. So this unit became handicapped and a dissapointment that could not live up to the high expectations and dreams people had before the war.
However, during the war did the helicopter prove itself as enormously valueable as an ambulance for wounded soldiers and as a troop transport alternative to paratroops. And in those roles I still expect helicopters to be valuable in the future.
But aside from that will they probably get more and more replaced by ugly drones, and the diverse flora of cheap and expensive anti-aircraft weapons of all ranges and types will probably make helicopter landing attacks dangerous and suicidal. So stealth, suppression and the element of surprise will probably be important if you wanna land troops with helicopters.
So small cheap massproduced drones are replacing expensive more expensive weapon systems like A10s, attack helicopters and such.
And the artillery duels in Ukraine seems to have become a competition about which side got the most long range artillery and most counter-battery artillery radars. If you can destroy your enemy from more far away than he can shot back at you, then you will be able to sooner or later dominate the battlefield. The enemy troops can then afterwards be wiped out, and leave the door open for your own troops to launch your own offensives.
World war 1 was partly a defensive war because of barbed wires, indirect artillery and machine guns was barriers too difficult to penetrate. And enemy troops in trenches was hard to destroy. And barbed wire was difficult to destroy and could only be cut through with either massive rains of high explosive artillery shells or with battle tanks.
However often did offensives manage to punch a hole into enemy lines.
But the lack of radio communication made it impossible to coordinate your troops once you had pushed deep into enemy land. Your artillery could not see the enemy, and without radio communication with the frontline troops there was no way they could hit targets that the artillery men could not see themselves. It was also difficult and took hours to get situation updates from the frontline to the Generals headquarter... so deserate calls for reinforcements from the frontline troops usually arrived too late.
So when the enemy counter-attacked he had the advantage of knowing the terrain, having shorter supply lines, and being able to have more instant contact between the troops and the head-quarters.
So the defenders thereby always had an advantage and could easily beat back an enemy attack as it had not yet dug it, lacked fire support, and reinforcements had not arrived to support the weakened troops and protect their flanks.
So before the invasion of the radio and the auftragstaktik was World war 1 doomed to be a stalemate.
Today however we do got the ability to communicate over very long distances. Far beyond the range of say 30-50km that the human eyes can see. So the coordination problem of world war 1 does no longer exist. So I don't think we will see the exactly the same type of war as world war 1 being fought again.
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@umaddude3808 More than half of EUs transports are done by ships. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Value_of_extra-EU_trade_in_goods,_by_mode_of_transport,_EU-28,_2002_and_2016_(%25_of_total)_GL17.png
And I am sure that some types of goods can be replaced by trucks, planes or railroads. But I am also certain that many types of goods cannot be replace shipping as the way of transport.
Sea transports are superior to all other forms of transport when it comes to cheaply transporting heavy bulky goods such as iron ore, coal and grain.
And that is the reason why almost all global trade in those goods are done by ship.
And replacing gigantic harbours as Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerpen with trains and trucks is simply nothing one can do over a night.
It is nearly impossible to overstate the importance of sea transports for global trade. During the roman empire was it chaper to transport a ship full of wheat from one end of the mediterranean to the other (from Syria to Spain), than to cart it 75 miles over land.
So it was probably no cincidence that Athens became a great power with its many islands and that Greek became the first global world language, the same way english became so after the creation of its huge naval empire.
Rome depended on the mediterranean for its empire. Same goew for Genoa and Venice. The hanseatic league and the Swedish empire relied on the baltic trade instead. And Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain were great naval empires as well.
So the military and economic importance of sea transports have been great. And its superiority to land transports were overwhelming in speed and cost effiency up until the creation of the railroads.
And even today does air transports only represent a tiny bit of all global trade. And airplanes are mostly used for transporting goods of light weight, high value and high price - such as microships that needs a fast delievery.
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@callmeari6254
Keeping old equipment in storage costs much money. You need to drive around tanks and aircraft engines atleast once a month, and you need to fix oil leaks, filters and change rubber coating on cables that dry up and gets destroyed as they age.
So then question becomes what is better? Keep old junk equipment that are semi-obsolete and cost money, or buy new equipment that does not cost as much to upkeep for the same amount of money?
My answer is that it is better to buy new equipment. Keeping old weapons like M113 and Leopard1 in storage is more of a burden to military budgets and Natos defence capabilities, than sending them away to Ukraine and buy something new.
And airplanes are only built to be able to fly a number of hours, say 5000 hours. And when you get close to that maximum number its becoming more dangerous to fly the plane as it might fall apart due to metal fatigue.
It also becomes more time consuming and cost more money to keep old fighter jets flying. So often times do airforces prefer to buy new planes instead of trying to upgrade old planes that are less capable and cost more money to upgrade.
It might be possible to upgrade old J-35 Draken or Viggen for modern air combat - but that would be extremely stupid because old planes cost money to upkeep and old Draken from 1955 needs 50 hours of maintainence on the ground for every 1 hour it is flying up in the sky,... while modern Gripen only needs 5 hours of maintance on the ground and is a more capable plane and costs less to upkeep.
Acting like a hoarder and keeping old junk is stupid and it is not what the west needs. Therefore is it good that we send away old weapons to Ukraine and renew our own stocks of weapons. We have waited for 40 years to make the necessary purchaces of modern military equipment, so I think it is good that we finally decide to make that step now, and get rid of old junk that is a burden on our economies.
And meanwhile are we fighting against evil. So it is a win-win.
Russia have tried the model that you suggest and it have keep all old musuem pieces in storage for this war. And let's just say that I am very unimpressed by russias laughable pathethic performance on the battlefield.
This war is not making Europe weaker. On the contrary is it making Europe stronger compared to our eastern enemy.
And the economy will benefit from not having to upkeep old junk. There is of course some small costs related to this war, but the risk is only that we get more wars in the future if we do not act now.
If we just let russia annex Ukraine unpunished, then China might take notice and feel the lust to make a similiar land grab in Taiwan.
And russias was not satisfied with annexing chechenya, stealing land from Georgia and occupying Ukraine. It wants to dominate all of eastern europe - so one can feel sure that more wars are to come if russia is not stopped now.
So helping ukraine is a small price worth paying.
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@mikaelpetersen3331
I live in Jämtland a former Norwegian province and I have no desire to become a part of the Danish-Norwegian Kingdom again. Furthermore was Scania orginially a Swedish province that Denmark took by force during the middle ages, and then was it retaken. Same could be said about Gotland which never really was Danish, but more of an independent island during the middleages, but with more ties with Sweden than with Denmark. Jämtlands status during the middle ages was unclear, but it belonged to the archdiocese of Uppland in Sweden.
So the core provinces of Denmark was just Sjaelland and Jylland. And Norways borders are roughly what they suppose to be, with perhaps Norway owning a small bit of Bohuslän and Sweden owning small pieces of Norwegian lands elsewhere.
So enough of your bullshit. Btw, I do not for a second believe that you are from Denmark.
You are most likely a russian pretending to be from Denmark. But that is just my own personal belief.
And your arguments about other places is just "might makes right". Which is an immoral attitude which if it is not abandoned will condemn this planet to wars forever and bloodshed.
And therefore should we put a stop to it by supporting Ukraine.
But your russian view also opens up an interesting possibility. With your view do Russia have no right to complain once the world gets fed up and gang up on her and take back all the historical lands she have stolen, like Karelia, East Prussia, Kuril islands, St. Petersburg and so on.
And I am a strong supporter of this idea. Given that russia is an evil empire that never seems to learn from history.
The country should be carved up between its neighbours like Poland was and be wiped out from history.
If wars and genocide it all it has to offer the world, then it is no loss if this culture gets lost.
And your talk about "Ukraine can't win" is just propaganda that no one outside the russosphere believes anymore.
Fact is that Ukraine is scoring won battle after won battle, their kill ratio is strongly in their favor, they retake piece by piece of their land while russias military and economic strength gets depleted.
You argue from a historically ignorant position by just assuming that russia cannot be defeated in war. But that axiom is just utter nonsense.
If modern history tells us anything, then one can surely see that russia is a country of worthless losernoobs when it comes to war. They lost the Crimean war, they lost the russo-japanese war, they lost WW1, they lost the polish-bolshevik war, they got humiliated by Finland in the winter and the continuation war, their incompetence led to the worst losses of manpower and tanks, guns and planes in history when Hitler invaded the country. And in the end did the country only survive because Germany had to fight a 5 front war, while russia only fought a 1 front war and had massive help from lend-lease.
Later on would russia lose in Afghanistan. And despite enormous material superiority did it lose the first Chechen war.
So russia can be beaten on the battlefield for sure.
And with wests massive technological and
economical superiority do the vodka maffia terrorist state in the east not stand a chance.
Their tactics was already outdated in 1917, and they haven't changed since. So russia cannot win this war on the battlefield.
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