Sanctions against Russia

[Jerry_Atrick]

I read this morning, Russia has amassed 50,000 troops along a 140km line flanking the Donbass and have started their campaign there. It will be an interesting next couple of weeks.

 

But spare a thought for the women... I read time and time again of brutal rape and violence against them... and then having to comfort drunk crying Russian solders who are very sorry for invading..

 

[willedoo]

When you look at a map overlayed with the current Russian controlled areas, you can see that the Ukrainians have a salient reminiscent of the Kursk Bulge in WW2. That will probably be the area with the most initial fighting as the Russians try to outflank and cut off the Ukrainian forces in the bulge. The Russians have been trying to push down from the Kharkov area to reinforce the centre of the flanking movement. Ukraine has been trying their hardest to disrupt the Russian advance from the north as it's probably their only hope to avoid encirclement. It would be a lot easier for Ukraine if it was a much straighter front. If so, they could advance or retreat without losing such a big number of troops which is what will happen if the bulge is outflanked and surrounded.

[willedoo]

According to one military expert, Russia no longer possesses any of their top T-90 main battle tanks, saying that Ukraine has destroyed them all. As in all of them, none left in the armed forces of Russia. Now Putler is down to the older T-72 main battle tank which is not modernised and easier to kill. Also, Uralvagonzavod, Russia's main tank assembly plant, is standing idle because there are no components left.

 

It will be an interesting Victory Day parade in Red Square in three weeks time. It might be just Putin on the stage, with half a dozen 'Z' marked Ladas parading by.

 

Edited April 19, 2022 by willedoo

[Jerry_Atrick]

What's the bet that around Victory Day, there will be an outbreak of COVID and the Victory Day Parade will be cancelled to stop the virus.

[willedoo]

Some encouraging news tonight that the Russians have suffered heavy losses south of Izium. I don't know if they are new losses or whether the ABC is late to the party reporting what happened a coupe of days ago. Either way, it has to be good for the Ukrainians in the Donbass front. The Russian plan is to keep coming down the highway and come in behind the Ukrainian forces occupying the salient in the line, thereby encircling them. The fighting in the Izium/ Slovyansk area is critical to deny the Russians that highway access needed to get their forces in behind the Ukrainians. The area is make or break for the Ukrainians, so hopefully they can stop Putin's rabble there.

[willedoo]

The game plan now looks to be one of fighting on and inflicting maxim losses on the Russian forces. Zelensky seems to have abandoned the idea of a negotiated settlement, as have their Western backers. The Ukrainian successes so far, added to the logistical supply of arms ramping up, has no doubt changed things. I think they are now thinking that if they keep doing what they have been doing, Ukraine can win this thing.

 

That approach makes sense at this stage of the conflict. Any negotiated settlement with Putin is doing a deal with the devil and would only encourage him. Instead of putting a bandaid on the boil, the U.S., NATO, and the Ukrainians now seem to have the will to lance it. The longer the conflict drags on, the worse it is for Putin and the better for the Ukraine/NATO alliance. If it keeps going too long, Russia's military capability will be set back for years. The good news for NATO would be that Putin won't have enough of an army left to threaten the Baltics in the near future.

 

It's not only the loss in troop numbers, armour and vehicles at issue, but also the depletion of stocks of high tech munitions. Putin will soon run out of guided missiles and thanks to sanctions, they will struggle to manufacture more due to their dependence on imported computer chips and other electronic components. By any stretch of the imagination, this has to be the beginning of the end of Putin.

[Marty_d]

Let's hope you're right Willedoo - and a cautionary tale for China in the process, would be nice.

[Old Koreelah]

The implications of Putin’s stupidity for mother Russia are serious; far from being a united nation, Russia is an enormous federation of diverse ethnic republics, some of whom may take this opportunity to press for greater autonomy- or separation. 

[kgwilson]

Reports and rumours of dissent within the Russian hierarchy are gathering pace. The purges will come back to bite Putin. Many of those ousted will have friends in the Kremlin. Russian losses in manpower and equipment have been massive. Far greater than their ability to replace both. Apparently the Tank factories are at a standstill due to lack of supply of parts. Also the opposition to the war amongst ordinary Russians is way above the level of support that was held initially.

[onetrack]

One of the things that buggers up dictators aims to conquer countries with a lot of mechanised equipment, is the sheer level of logistics, skill, labour, and supplies of parts and consumables, to keep it all running.

 

Hitlers mechanised forces ran out of fuel in the Middle East, because the Nazis stretched their supply lines too far, and made no strenuous efforts to ensure fuel supplies were adequate.

In addition, the Allies targeted Nazi fuel storage, tankers and other fuel-manufacturing infrastructure, to ensure that there wouldn't be enough fuel for Nazi equipment.

 

Hitler stuffed up by using every part and component manufactured for aircraft, went into building as many aircraft as possible - as a numerical display of aerial strength. But the Allies kept around 10% of manufactured parts and components in reserve, as parts on the shelf.

As a result, no parts were available on a regular basis for the Luftwaffe aircraft - or Nazi armour, either - and good Nazi machines grounded with minor faults, were cannibalised to keep other war-damaged machines running.

 

Tank tracks wear out at an alarming rate. Even the Allies found this out. During WW2, there was an inadequate number of low-loaders available in Australia to move squadrons of tanks around for exercises in different areas - so the tanks were "roaded" - driven at speed on the roads to get to their destinations.

Suddenly, it was found that the tanks tracks were worn out, from high speed roading - in as little as 1000 miles (1600kms) in many cases.

This led to a lot of downtime, as men and materials were then needed to be diverted to premature tank track replacement. Then there was a shortage of new tracks, thanks to the sudden and major demand placed on replacement track assemblies, which far exceeded initial estimates.

 

Putins mechanised military equipment will be under equivalent pressure to the Nazis equipment, as far as logistics and repairs and replacements needed. The vast distances across much of the Ukraine are on a par with many parts of Australia.

The only thing the Russians have in their favour is a lack of Ukrainian or Western/NATO forces attacking their military manufacturing facilities. But if the Ukrainians are smart, they will be finding and targeting Russian military manufacturing and repair factories with drones, to bugger up the Russians. The Russians have already hit Ukrainian tank repair facilities, now I hope the Ukrainians can play tit for tat - with good results. 

[willedoo]

onetrack, some good points about the track gear. It wouldn't surprise me if the Russians had inadequate supplies of spare tracks in storage. Those they do possess still have to be transported to somewhere near the front so maintenance crews can replace them. Good targets if you can locate them. Meanwhile, when they run out of track adjustment, they throw tracks in the field. It will be interesting in the future when this is over to see a list of equipment gains by Ukraine.

[willedoo]

There's no doubt Russia's oil exports are down, but getting an accurate figure is not easy. Bloomberg headlines said Russian oil exports have dropped 25% in one week. Bearing in mind, anything coming from Bloomberg has to be taken with a grain of salt. What they've done is calculate a daily average for the two months of the war period, getting a figure of 3.12 million barrels per day. Then they've calculated a daily figure for last week's figures and compared that to the two month daily average. I failed maths at school, but that sounds dodgy to me. Wouldn't it be more accurate to compare the total outputs of both weeks? I would think that would be a better reflection of the % difference between this week and last week.

[willedoo]

An average export of 3.12 million barrels a day since war broke out makes the loss of 400,000 barrels per day exported to the U.S. market look significant. The U.S. is lucky in that they don't normally import large volumes of gas from Russia, so losing Russian oil and gas doesn't hurt them as much as the European countries. The U.S. has exempted uranium and still imports it from Russia.

 

The sanctions need to go further. Maybe every gas stove in Germany should have a picture of dead Ukrainian children hanging above it. Just to remind the Europeans that their luxury is paid for in other people's blood.

[onetrack]

I'm just waiting for some Ukrainian commandos to blow up some Russian natural gas pipelines. That would hurt Russia as much as losing a pile of tanks.

The rest of Europe might then also get a good lesson about becoming too reliant on one source for your energy supplies.

[willedoo]

10 minutes ago, onetrack said:

I'm just waiting for some Ukrainian commandos to blow up some Russian natural gas pipelines. That would hurt Russia as much as losing a pile of tanks.

The rest of Europe might then also get a good lesson about becoming too reliant on one source for your energy supplies.

I think Ukraine needs the Russian gas for the same reasons as the Europeans. I don't think Ukraine is self sufficient in gas. I wonder about the transit royalties Ukraine gets from Russia for gas transiting to Europe. It's a good income earner for Ukraine. Maybe Russia is still paying them during the conflict. You would think if Russia froze royalty payments, then Ukraine would stop the gas. Only problem if they did, Ukraine would make enemies of the Europeans who are dependent on that gas.

[willedoo]

The whole gas issue has been a big thing in all of this. It looks like the Yanks were right after all about reliance on Russian gas being a security risk. It wasn't just the U.S. trying to steal Russia's gas markets.

[kgwilson]

With the huge losses of Russian tanks I am wondering if the age of the tank as an effective weapon is all but over. There is the British NLAW (new generation light anti tank weapon), the American Javelin & the Ukrainian Stugna-P, all of which have been used to great effect. All appear to target the trurret which is a weak point as once that is disabled or blown off a tank is useless. These anti tank missiles home in on the target once fired & the operator can high tail it out of the the area. The fact that they can be carried in the boot of a car and only need one person to use them & require minimal training to use as well.

 

The UK initially sent 4200 NLAWS to Ukraine & had been training The Ukraine Army since 2014 & the hit rate against Russian armour is over 90%. The NLAW is lighter than the Javelin & is a one time deployment so you fire it drop the launcher & bugger off.

 

The cost of these things is eye watering. A NLAW casts about $US30-40k & a Javelin $US178k with a reusable launcher but each missile costs $US78k.

 

Still a lot cheaper than a tank & I guess they are used on all sorts of armoured vehicles including self propelled artillery etc.

[old man emu]

25 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

The cost of these things is eye watering. A NLAW casts about $US30-40k & a Javelin $US178k with a reusable launcher but each missile costs $US78k.

 

This is no joke, but real ingenuity. The Projected Recoil-less Improvised Grenade (PRIG) was a shoulder fired weapon developed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) for use against lightly armored vehicles. It is perhaps the most ingenious example of kitchen cupboard improvisation to date. 

 

   

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/10/13/iras-recoilless-improvised-grenade-launcher/

 

Make yourself a cuppa and watch this. The biscuits will be served towards the end of the video.

 

 

[Yenn]

I worked on tanks in the fifties and saw some of the effects of armour piercing against them in WW2.

That made me certain that I would not want to go to war in one and while tanks have improved I think missiles have improved even more.

To see a hole in the side of a Churchill tank and the insides demolished by ricocheting  metal makes for sobering thoughts about tanks.

[onetrack]

The vast majority of Shermans used by the Americans were petrol powered (by the Continental W-970 radial). They were nicknamed "Ronsons" by the troops, after the famous WW2 cigarette lighter - because a decent hit on a Sherman by any armour piercing shell would see them go up like a lighter being struck. Pity the number of poor tankies who burned to death in a Sherman, their numbers were in the thousands.

[rgmwa]

Judging by the typical condition of the Russian tanks hit by missiles, their crews probably (fortunately) never knew what hit them. I would imagine the surviving tank crews would be some of the more nervous troops currently manning the front lines.

 

[willedoo]

Russia's newest tank design, the T-14 Armata, has an automated manless turret. The three man crew are in an armoured capsule at the front of the hull. It's designed for crew survival, but the Russian experience in Ukraine has shown that their military doesn't give two hoots about their own men. Once the turret is knocked off, the tank is useless as a fighting machine, so from the Russian military's attitude, what's to gain by the crew surviving. They don't care.

 

The T-14 has a good 5" smooth bore gun and a few other good design features. It was supposed to go into serial production this year, but I'd guess all bets are off with their military planning and expenditure now. After this is over, the Russian military will be too busy licking their wounds for a while to be embarking on new projects. I can't see any feature of the T-14 that would have helped Russia in Ukraine. I'd agree that drones and man portable anti tank weapons are creating a lot of questions about the future of the tank in warfare.

 

 

[willedoo]

Mariupol photographer Vic Dedoff, killed by Russians four weeks ago, and his photos of Mariupol in better times, 2021.

 

[willedoo]

I read that so far, 20,000 volunteers from 52 countries have signed on to fight for Ukraine. That's a sizeable addition to Ukraine's forces.

[willedoo]

Russian press today reported a meeting between Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. Shoigu supposedly updated Putin on the situation in Mariopul, and Putin told him to call off the Russian attack on the steel mill. 

Quote: “We always need to think about preserving the lives and health of our soldiers and officers," Putin told the defense chief, adding that, in this particular case, they should not be sent to assault the steel plant.

 

A bit late to start worrying about the lives of his soldiers. The truth of it is that he doesn't want further humiliation. The Azov steel plant was built in Soviet times and has an extensive bomb proof underground tunnel and bunker system. The Russians would suffer heavy losses to get the Ukrainians out of there by force if the defenders still have ammunition. He'll most likely try to starve them out. The plant itself is huge, almost a city on it's own, and is/was one of Europe's biggest steel mills.

 

This link to a Ruptly video of the supposed meeting may or may not work. The website video player doesn't seem to show controls (pause etc.) in full screen mode. It's quite clear that they've video edited Putin's head onto another body. Best viewed by fast forwarding to where Putin speaks, then right click, select full screen. For all their experience in propaganda, it's a really bad fake. Putin's obviously still isolating in his bunker. He fakes the meeting in his bunker, then they shop his head onto the other segment. Only question is, is Shoigu faked as well - a bit hard to tell.

https://www.ruptly.tv/ru/videos/20220421-003-Rossiya-Putin-prikazal-otmenit-shturm-promzoni-Azovstali-v-Mariupole