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Ukraine #17: Is There Life on HIMARS?


Werthead

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

I read the reason the SPD are weak is because their supporters are older, and not confronting Russia is ingrained in them. Is that correct?

There are lots of reasons on the table. Their voter base is actually pretty divided on arms support for Ukraine (with I think is nearly 40 % in favor), so that's not entirely the main reason. The SPD may have traditionally prided itself with a successful diplomatic attitude towards the USSR (mostly pointing at Brandt), but today's SPD seems to also have a deeply entrenched Schröder influenced wing of people who are in the pocket of Gazprom and/or people in the leftist remnant wing that did the same political education trips to Moscow that AfD and Linke members regularly do. Northstream 2 for example seems to have been even more of a pet project of the SPD than it was for Merkel (though the latter still stubbornly went through with it) and now more and more information bubbles up about how SPD decision makers sidelined experts bringing forth worries about the ramifications of the pipeline. Then of course there is Scholz' alleged involvement in the Wirecard scandal and how Russia has granted its fugitive chief operating officer asylum, though admittedly, the evidence that Scholz really has some serious criminal involvement in that is tenuous at best.

At the end of the day however, it mostly comes down to Scholz having pretty much run on the platform that he's an inflexible obstructive bureaucrat who wants to keep things exactly as they are and that's pretty much what we've got.

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8 hours ago, horangi said:

Made worse by the fact that since Russia already killed all the HIMARS 10x over (along with the 1000 TB-2s), it must have been an undead HIMARS with a CR rating above their priest's Turn Undead channeling ability.  A chilling turn, and truly proof that the Ukrainian Nazis are following the Occult practices of their Wolfenstein namesakes. 

The H in Himars clearly stands for hydra because every time the Russians strike one down two more appear to take its place.

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53 minutes ago, williamjm said:

The H in Himars clearly stands for hydra because every time the Russians strike one down two more appear to take its place.

A child of Hydra and the god of war, makes sense now.

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8 hours ago, SeanF said:

I read the reason the SPD are weak is because their supporters are older, and not confronting Russia is ingrained in them. Is that correct?

That is my interpretation of the situation, too. Well, that in combination with actually being in goverment right now. The CDu voters are as old or even older on average than the average SPD voter. But they are in opposition, so they can beat them with that stick more freely.

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300 km shells.  You know what is within 300 km but not 70 of Ukrainian territory?  The Kerch bridge.  Which, in what could only be an astonishing coincidence, a us military official confirmed was indeed a legitimate military target. 

Very interesting...

 

 

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20 hours ago, Maithanet said:
 

300 km shells.  You know what is within 300 km but not 70 of Ukrainian territory?  The Kerch bridge.  Which, in what could only be an astonishing coincidence, a us military official confirmed was indeed a legitimate military target. 

Very interesting...

The Russians have been bracing for an attack on the bridge for a while, hence their insane drill last week that ended up in a multi-vehicle pile-up on the bridge.

They do need to be somewhat careful. 300km brings numerous large Russian cities within firing range of Ukrainian forces, and Moscow is only 600km from Kharkiv. One Ukrainian general going off-message and firing off a salvo deep into Russian territory could spark another escalation.

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Russian ammo depots in Luhansk taking a pounding tonight, and Ukrainian footage of Russian armored columns being destroyed from what appears to be a distance.

Definitely looks like Ukraine is back in the artillery game in a big way.

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In the last 2 weeks we got 21 confirmed explosions of Russian ammo dumps and yet I'm seeing the doomsayers as loud as rarely before both in the media as well as in the (German) forums. Saying that we should all limit our hopes, that Russia is still winning through sheer mass, that the US will soon make a peace and throw Ukraine under the bus, that we are soon getting mass protests about the gas prices across all of Europe and of course that Russia is going to mobilize and pull out their remaining high tech weapons any moment now because the usage of 50s and 60s technology is just a sign that they are holding their best stuff back for a war with NATO (an argument a war correspondent on the Welt TV channel did yesterday that caused me a spit take, even though the correspondent himself seemed utterly unconvinced by it as he was questioned in a way to force him to say this is still in the realm of possibilities).

I know I have my bias that I want to see Ukraine prevail myself, but... there is something really strange going on with some people wanting to wish for a Russian victory just to see their own oozing cynicism one-upping those who wish for a turnaround.

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10 hours ago, Werthead said:

Russian ammo depots in Luhansk taking a pounding tonight, and Ukrainian footage of Russian armored columns being destroyed from what appears to be a distance.

Definitely looks like Ukraine is back in the artillery game in a big way.

Certainly at least trying to better even their odds. 

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In the meantime two German soldiers got arrested for stealing explosives from military store in Schleswig and planning to destroy Crimean bridge. At least this is what I have read after I woke up  :o maybe I am not sober yet.

https://mobile.twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1546041206492250114

Ok, IT says they stole weapons and equipment, my imagination worked a bit.

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2 hours ago, Toth said:

In the last 2 weeks we got 21 confirmed explosions of Russian ammo dumps and yet I'm seeing the doomsayers as loud as rarely before both in the media as well as in the (German) forums. Saying that we should all limit our hopes, that Russia is still winning through sheer mass, that the US will soon make a peace and throw Ukraine under the bus, that we are soon getting mass protests about the gas prices across all of Europe and of course that Russia is going to mobilize and pull out their remaining high tech weapons any moment now because the usage of 50s and 60s technology is just a sign that they are holding their best stuff back for a war with NATO (an argument a war correspondent on the Welt TV channel did yesterday that caused me a spit take, even though the correspondent himself seemed utterly unconvinced by it as he was questioned in a way to force him to say this is still in the realm of possibilities).

I know I have my bias that I want to see Ukraine prevail myself, but... there is something really strange going on with some people wanting to wish for a Russian victory just to see their own oozing cynicism one-upping those who wish for a turnaround.

I would say stop reading telepolis or any other of the troll infested cesspools.

I may live in a bubble of not being east of a line going through Elbe and Werra. But I never have encountered anyone spewing those insanities in real life (not discounting those people exist in large numbers).

It's a shame that some of those nutcases are in government right now.

One thing though really worries me. I think everyone remembers how derelict the German army was supposed to be - I was a big fan of this situation btw. Could it be that the claims that they can't empty out our last working equipment because then we are without functioning defenses are based in reality?

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Russia failing to recruit the needed Middle Eastern mercenaries, Belarus basically saying they will not join the war in any meaningful sense, Chechnya getting antsy whenever their soldiers are killed and Putin apparently being too wary to declare a formal mobilisation all point to Russia having a serious manpower issue. Deploying effective penal battalions just reinforces that. We've also seen the sheer volume of equipment they've lost, their shortage of artillery shells in the last couple of weeks, and big cracks appearing in relations between Russia and the breakaway vassals. The fact it has had to declare a tactical pause along almost its entire front is a sign that it is having huge problems.

This conflict is really not going well for Russia.

On the other hand, they are squatting on a lot of Ukrainian real estate and Ukrainian gains (or regains) through combat have been modest so far, whilst Ukraine has obviously taken a colossal amount of military and economic damage. It's hard to say if Ukraine has the capacity to regain a lot of territory in a short period of time. That's certainly possible - Russia could indeed suffer a fairly spectacular collapse on the front if all its problems culminate in the same time period - but not proven yet. We also have to see if Russia's tactical pause will result in Russia reorganising even despite its problems and then advancing again, despite its issues.

There is certainly no justification for defeatism and some for optimism, but I think we need to see some big wins for Ukraine. It does look like they are planning a big effort for Kherson in the near-ish future (use of HIMARS to precision-target Russian ammo dumps and military bases in the town itself, telling residents to stay indoors where possible for the next few weeks).

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On 7/9/2022 at 3:22 AM, Wilbur said:

Flip-flops and fire control:  four shots in 30 seconds.

Before the war, the guy sitting on the right worked on a road construction crew.

Dunno how much the Phz2000 charge module weights, but if its 45kg like propellant for Krab, then the loader in flip-flops must have been an ant before the war.

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48 minutes ago, kiko said:

I would say stop reading telepolis or any other of the troll infested cesspools.

I may live in a bubble of not being east of a line going through Elbe and Werra. But I never have encountered anyone spewing those insanities in real life (not discounting those people exist in large numbers).

It's a shame that some of those nutcases are in government right now.

One thing though really worries me. I think everyone remembers how derelict the German army was supposed to be - I was a big fan of this situation btw. Could it be that the claims that they can't empty out our last working equipment because then we are without functioning defenses are based in reality?

Putin's Western admirers fall into three camps.

On the far right, people who see a government that puts ethnic minorities, women, and homosexuals in their place.  They admire other non-Western countries for the same reason.  To them, Putin is The Man.

On the far left, people for whom the West is always in the wrong.  Always.

The "realists" who think Russia is too powerful and too dangerous to confront.  They've probably had the worst war of the three groups.

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One hell of an explosion in Chystiakove, Donetsk. Looks like a Russian ammo depot. Another one going up in Shakhtarsk which is only 100m away, so the Ukrainians took them out in the same attack (note: probably not a good idea to have two massive ammo depots right next to each other).

In the comments there's people worried about the level of intel the CIA is providing to Ukraine, but lots of withering responses that the Russians are using former captured Ukrainian military bases. They know where they are. Ukrainian civilians are also simply spotting warehouses that have been converted into dumps and are simply texting them to government hotlines.

 

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Hiding the location of ammo and fuel dumps in the era of satellites is already extremely difficult. Doing it in enemy territory when everyone has cell phones is virtually impossible.

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Helicopters that were meant to be delivered to Afghanistan pre-Taliban Mk. II, so were diverted to Ukraine instead. Ukraine put them in service so fast they haven't changed the livery.

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