Posted on 05/12/2022 12:35:24 PM PDT by Widget Jr
For decades, Russia has been the world's second most powerful military. Today, it is the second most powerful military inside Ukraine.
How in the world did a nation with such a significant military overmatch get into a quagmire against a much weaker power?
Just what is wrong with the Russian military?
Yeah ok sure !
Russia only has a population of roughly 140 million same as the island of Java in the Republic of Indonesia. Also, Russia has a lot of non-Slavic minorities, who might be tired of dying for pan-Slavia.
What about it? I'd rather look at data than some person's interpretation of it.
Quick question, are those Russian vehicles in the images fine or did they get hit with artillery and other ordnance?
Maybe you did, but looking at data showed he was wrong.
Look at images, testimony, reports from the front, videos, and all the things everyone seems to have no problem believing if it supposedly happened in the USA.
How do you know that we have a lot of illegal aliens crossing the southern border? Because some Republican told you so? Or because you saw the people yourself or on videos?
Quick question, are those Russian vehicles - or are they something else?
I wonder if the US military looks at drone and satellite images or listens to what a guy like Baghdad Bob has to say?
Let me guess. You think they are aliens from outer space.
The Defense Politics Asia guy literally uses aerial and satellite images in his updates.
Stop talking to me, freeandfreezing. You have literally no information to impart - only the propaganda you guzzle off network "news".
hurr durr hurr durr pickchures I seen hurr durr
This is what comes of telling the neocon children in the Elite universities that they're "special" and "better than everyone else".
I honestly can't think of a use for these people.
Well, actually I can - but a box of skeet lasts longer and doesn't screech
This is blatant historical ignorance.
Nazi Germany massed 3.8 million military personnel for the invasion of the Soviet Union for Operation Barbarossa in June 1941; it was the largest invasion force in the history of warfare.
The German High Command's casualty figures for World War II (from Sept 1, 1939 to Jan 31, 1945) were 1,810,061 total combat deaths and 1,902,704 missing/POWs; of these totals, 1,105,987 deaths (or 61%+) occurred on the Eastern Front. Likewise for 1,018,365 of the missing/POWs (or ~53.5% of the total. When accounting for the wounded and sick during this period (4,429,875), the overwhelming majority occurred on the Eastern Front (3,498,059, or over 78%).
In other words, during this period, of all military casualties tabulated by Germany's own High Command, over two-thirds occurred whilst fighting the Red Army on the Eastern Front.
Other historical surveys, such as that released in 2000 by the German historian Rüdiger Overmans, report similarly lopsided figures.
The Eastern Front in World War II was the largest military confrontation in human history. It was thanks to Soviet counteroffensives following the winter of 1941 that bogged down the Wehrmacht into a war of attrition that ran contrary to their operational strengths. However, the old ethnic hatreds between the Germans (and their Prussian ancestry) and the Soviets (particularly those with Slavic ancestry, as the Nazis considered Slavs to be subhuman) ensured that no quarter would be given by either side, resulting in more death and destruction than any other theater of the war.
When comparing the USSR's population pre-WWII with the estimated casualty figures, it is no exaggeration to say that one out of every eight Soviet citizens died over a four year span. When considering the thousands upon thousands of cities, towns, and villages that were ravaged or completely destroyed, no aspect of the Soviet national consciousness was left untouched by the war: "That conflict, which ended sixty years before this book’s completion, was a decisive component – arguably the single most decisive component – of the Second World War. It was on the eastern front, between 1941 and 1945, that the greater part of the land and associated air forces of Nazi Germany and its Axis partners were ultimately destroyed by the Soviet Union in what, from 1944, its people – and those of the fifteen successor states – called, and still call, the Great Patriotic War." - Bellamy, Chris (2007). Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War. Macmillan, 2007. p. xix
To summarize in picture form:
They know how to pick a colored jersey - or be told how to pick a colored jersey.
Meh. I don't care how old you are. I don't care how infirm you are. You have skin in THIS game.
So what would happen if they launched a nuke or two and it fizzled?
Don’t know about the Rusky nukes, but a couple of ours falling from B52 refuelling altitude look pretty much intact with the exception of a little denting.
A friend of mine at the Naval Research Lab with experience in the USNS Thresher search was scheduled to join the search for two H bombs which had fallen into the Mediterranean. The Navy required a number of shots to do any foreign travelling. He flunked the shot test and didn’t make the trip. Some kind of allergic reaction.
A few years ago while visiting my older brother in Albuquerque we were roaming the outside yard of what used to be the Atomic Museum. It was near quitting time and the docent came to chase us out. Being a technical type talking to two technical types, this started to take a while. When we were moving through the main building to make our exit, I looked down and saw what the writing indicated were the two Mediterranean H bombs. They were approximately the size of a human. I assume they took the insides out, but there was no obvious sign of that. Soil impact may produce larger dents.
And we'll hear a lot of bold talk from you - right up until Pootie deploys his secret weapon: sex with Joy Behar - unbagged.
May 9th (Victory Day) is essentially Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Independence Day rolled into one holiday.
As far as the secular Russian state goes, its importance cannot be exaggerated.
[amnestynone #101] The only reason Hitler was stopped was like Napoleon he ran into the Russian winter not because of anything the Russkies did. Most of Hitlers army was fighting us and England and allies.[Ultra Sonic 007 #133] This is blatant historical ignorance.
That is ahistorical for the reasons which were set forth. I would add that the Germans also encountered a wasteland when they advanced and occupied. The Russians engaged in a scorched earth policy and destroyed everything as they retreated, leaving as little as possible for the advancing Germans. The greatest German losses were on the eastern front.
[amnestynone #101] They got beat in Afghanistan and now Ukraine.
It is a work of fiction that Ukraine is winning anything. Ukraine is getting destroyed. Whichever side makes something go bang in Ukraine, it destroys something in Ukraine. Villages and cities are disappearing from the map. Mariupol just is not there any more. Towns and villages are not there. There are over 8 million displaced Ukrainians in Ukraine, many because where they used to live is not there any more. Millions more have made it out of the country. When the conflict is over, the people of Ukraine will not just move back into Mariupol. Almost all the buildings and infrastructure are destroyed.
When the Russians leave someplace they have destroyed, the some Baghdad Bob reports that the enemy has been repelled and the area liberated.
The Ukraine forces cut off in the east are being obliterated. If the Russian army has been defeated in Ukraine, that should mean Ukraine no longer needs American tax dollars for military hardware. They are not asking for tens of billions of dollars to fight the peace.
It should also mean that Ukraine is capable of liberating the desperate folks trapped under the Azovstal factory. Inconsistently, they claim they cannot leave because they have been ordered to remain and defend the location; but alternately beg to be extracted by some miracle, leaving nobody to defend the location. It's war. They are trapped in a hole in the ground. They can fight or surrender. Only members of the Ukrainian military forces would be entitled to POW status. They can stay down there until they starve.
Major Serhiy Volyna, acting commander of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade, to Elon Musk on twitter, "@elonmusk people say you come from another planet to teach people to believe in the impossible," wrote Volyna in his tweet. "Our planets are next to each other, as I live where it is nearly impossible to survive. Help us get out of Azovstal to a mediating country. If not you, then who? Give me a hint."
A hint. Not Zelensky. Raise periscope. Is Russian army still there? Maybe they want to have Scotty to beam them out. It's war. They have lost. How can the victorious army be begging Elon Musk to save them?
They can come out and fight to the death. They can come out and surrender. They can stay down there until they starve to death. I am unsure which one of those alternatives best meets the description of winning.
"Siege warfare is conducted by encircling an enemy military concentration, a strategic fortress or any other locations defended by the enemy, cutting it off from channels of support and supply. The essence of siege warfare lies in an attempt to capture the invested location through starvation." Yoram Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict, 2nd Ed., Cambridge University Press, 2010.
The neocons are utterly classless, and so are their hangers-on.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.