Quote from: be.open on Today at 04:04:32 AM

Quote from: suchmoon on June 09, 2023, 10:09:13 PM

Quote from: be.open on June 09, 2023, 12:44:14 PM

When the Leopards and Offensive Guards are over, there will be an opportunity for Russia to demonstrate its strike potential.

The time for Putin to show his "strike potential" was before Ukraine got Leopards and Patriots and Himarses and all that other stuff. And he failed miserably.

You are clearly unfair to Putin's strategic genius. There are numerous problems in implementing a special military operation in Ukraine, but the initial flexibility of this excellent strategy forgives them all! The current position of Russia looks extremely advantageous, although of course it could be much better. You can always do something better in an imperfect real world.

Quote from: suchmoon on June 09, 2023, 10:09:13 PM

Best he can hope for now is some sort of stalemate but having only ~10% worth of NATO GDP he will eventually lose even if he somehow manages to ramp up production of 1970s soviet military equipment.

In terms of GDP percentage, NATO has a significant advantage over Russia, but fortunately this is not a competition in terms of the percentage of GDP. Himars are beautiful, I think this is a very good volley fire system, one of the best in the world, maybe the best. And what are these Himars doing now, why, for example, are they not massively shelling Russian positions in the Orekhovo or Lobkovo region, taking advantage of the firing range? Where are the systems for remote demining, why do armored columns of Ukraine move along the roads during the day, where they can be easily detected and covered with artillery or shot with ATGMs from front-line aviation? Why are there no anti-mine trawls on Leopards? The Armed Forces of Ukraine disappoint me with the mediocrity of their counteroffensive, falling into a mediocre frontal onslaught. Perhaps Zaluzhny was really seriously shell-shocked in May and he was removed from control, but I don’t see the handwriting of a talented general in the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And NATO is not in a position to help Ukraine here, because NATO generals themselves do not have experience in conducting large-scale military operations, they studied from textbooks for local anti-terrorist operations. NATO instructors at European training grounds can prepare another million Ukrainians for the Offensive Guards Two (if they find so many willing ones) and they will all be defeated. And all the Leopards and Bradleys will also burn in the endless steppes of Ukraine. But let's see how events develop, I think Ukraine has now activated about a third of its strategic offensive reserve, a critical situation will arise when less than half of the reserves remain. If Ukraine does not break through the front line within a week, the situation may unfold for it in the most unfavorable dramatic way. It seems Zelensky is already very nervous.

Emm... HIMARS are not for volley fire. They can fire in volley, but that is not their best use and is not for mass shelling, it is for precision targeting.

Why one small column was seen moving in the day without precautions? I cannot answer that, but probably due to some stupid officer.

Yes, in a wart of attrition the economy wins. Ask Japan.

NATO is helping Ukraine massively and they do have relatively recent experience in massive military operations (Afghanistan, Irak, Kuwait,...) Intelligence, strategy, everything... The US is always fighting one war or another and they have many salaries to justify - they do have seasoned high rankings and very good strategists. It is foolish to think that they learnt about war "in books" - that would be a grave mistake.

The fact is that Ukraine is under the "shhh" policy, so all you are getting is the RF version. Do no make the mistake to think that you have real information and try to draw any conclusion from it.