Is this TEOTHWAWKI, the SHTF, or just plain old Armageddon?

[Bing_Oh]

Just curious if O.com nation is readying itself for a few hundred incoming ICBMs, and if your departments have contingency plans in place in the event a 100 kiloton warhead explodes in the sky above.

I've already made it clear that, if the big one kicks off, I'm approx 30-45 min from two "overkill" targets. My plan is to drive toward them and wait for the flash...the alternative is starvation, the total breakdown of society, radiation poisoning, cancer, nuclear winter, or a combo of any of the above. None sound particularly appealing.

[tanksoldier]

All I know is Reddit is full of videos of the turrets of Russian tanks popping off like bottlecaps and unexploded missiles sticking out of the Ukranian dirt, fins and all completely intact.

The popping turret thing is due to how Russians store their ammo. It provides advantages prior to being hit (smaller turret) but disadvantages after being hit.

US tanks prior to the M1 Abrams series had similar stowage and similar turret cook offs.

One thing the 'special military operation' has demonstrated is the Russian military-industrial manufacturing structure is obviously corrupted, and the stuff they make is obviously crap.

This is actually false. Russian equipment is fine. It’s users are the problem.

Russian doctrine and equipment take into account that the vast majority of their troops are poorly trained conscripts. Equipment is designed to be operated by an illiterate peasant with three weeks training, tactics account for having few if any effective first line supervisors (Russia uses an “NCO Academy” like the USArmy tried in Vietnam to generate junior NCOs from each incoming conscript class. It works about as well as ours did, not very).

The problem is, this system breaks down when you get to equipment as complicated as modern tanks and missiles. They just can’t be maintained by conscripts…. which is why you see Russian tanks being drug off by Ukrainian farm tractors. Russian logistics call for crews to abandon any tank that needs more than the simplest repair, and be issued a new one. The broken tank is them collected by logistics units, repaired and re issued…. Except that isn’t happening.

Russian tanks and aircraft are being destroyed in large numbers not because they are bad, but because they are being employed incorrectly. The logistics units aren’t in place to recover and repair vehicles quickly. The full strength of Russian air defense and air combat forces isn’t present. Most importantly, the Russians aren’t using their version of combined arms doctrine. Tanks don’t deploy alone in urban areas…. In urban areas they support infantry…. Yet how many videos are there of Russian tanks moving alone or in column thru urban areas? Dozens. Those videos shouldn’t even be possible…. The buildings should be cleared by infantry before the tanks move up.

For some reason the Russians aren’t fighting to their strengths, and it’s biting them in the butt.

[Bing_Oh]

For some reason the Russians aren’t fighting to their strengths, and it’s biting them in the butt.

If I were to make a guess, I'd say that the biggest issue is at the command level. As with all dictatorships, Putin has put in place only "yes men" in positions of power and authority...that includes high positions in the military. The Russians (and Soviets before them) were never particularly good at making decisions on-the-fly. They rely heavily on decisions make by those higher up the food chain and executed, with no deviation, by those below them. When the commanders are either incompetent or afraid to make a decision because it's not "politically-expedient," then the line troops are doing nothing but executing bad orders with no option or training to deviate.

[CCCSD]

They have no strengths to fight from. Their training is garbage, their tactics are utter garbage, they can’t do a single thing right…well..they do get the rapes and theft and murder done on an industrial scale…

Fratricide, mercenaries, volunteers…all utter ****e. Nazi tactics that make Pol Pot blush.

Russia needs to be rendered obsolete back to 1815 levels.

[Aidokea]

I may not agree with Russian politics, but I have nothing against the Russian people:

[tanksoldier]

They have no strengths to fight from. snip

their tactics are utter garbage, .

These two are false. I spent a good part of my military career sending BLUFOR packing, using Soviet tactics. The tactics work.

They just aren’t being used.

https://twitter.com/tinso_ww/status/...thing-wrong%2F

This is not how anybody teaches “react to ambush”…. That’s a basic battle drill. Everybody knows it and everybody does it more or less the same: US Army, Russian Army, French Army, Chinese Army. When ambushed a leader identifies the direction of assault (assault north! Or whatever) and you assault out of the kill zone, hopefully into the ambushers’ positions. Troops, vehicles, everybody lays fire and hauls ZZ. Sitting IN the kill zone is the worst possible thing…. Worse by far than assaulting the wrong direction…. But that’s what these Russians are doing.

The oroblems just work higher from there. Tanks in cities by themselves is not in anybodies playbook…. But the Russians do it constantly.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...orces-kyiv-war

Dismounted infantry should be flanking in every built up or closed in area: buildings, woods, valleys…. There’s no flank security, no dismounts, nothing.

If I were to make a guess, I'd say that the biggest issue is at the command level. As with all dictatorships, Putin has put in place only "yes men" in positions of power and authority...that includes high positions in the military. The Russians (and Soviets before them) were never particularly good at making decisions on-the-fly. They rely heavily on decisions make by those higher up the food chain and executed, with no deviation, by those below them..

This is a common misconception. The Russians, and Soviets before them, do everything by the Book…. There are actually few decisions to make at any level. The Book has a solution for almost every problem…. You just employ one of the variations snd off you go.

Thats the problem. The Russians ARE NOT using their Book at all… they are completely off script.

Its as if somebody IS making decisions, INSTEAD of using the Book, and doing it badly.

The Book doesn’t say “send tanks into cities with no infantry support”, it doesn’t say “send armored columns down highways with no route clearance or flank security”, it doesn’t say “send in ground attack fighters and helicopters without air superiority and suppression of enemy air defense”…. The Russian Book says the opposite of all that.

The problem isn’t that the6 aren’t able to deviate from the Book…. The problem is they aren’t even USING the Book.

[Aidokea]

You did OPFOR?

[tanksoldier]

Yep, 1991 to 1993. Almost 200 rotations at NTC.

[CCCSD]

The Russians have been seen as a threat for years. Turns out…they’re not. Two year draftees. Contraknitki who immediately move into SPETNETZ forces, no training except axe throwing and jumping on cars., VDV who concentrate more on Show than Go.

RUS is a joke: Ill disciplined, no leadership, gear riddled with mice, anti-armor systems filled with egg cartons, ships rusting, cardboard Level IV vests, wooden EDDs…etc.

We feared them for nought.

Just because you played OPFOR using 80 year old tactics doesn’t mean they are a threat. The real threat is the uncontrolled lawlessness RUS MIL is doing.

RUS needs to be removed from ever being a mosquito.

I enjoy reading each KIA posting.

[tanksoldier]

Not entirely wrong, BUT the real question is WHY are they falling apart so badly? They didn’t have these problems in Georgia.

[CCCSD]

Because Georgia didn’t fight.

[tanksoldier]

Not as much, true…. but military operations are all about logistics. The saying is “amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics”…. or as Forrest put it “get there first with the most men”. If you do that, the fighting part usually takes care of itself. Many of the Russians’ most obvious problems come down to logistics and organization…. Running out of gas, not recovering disabled equipment, sending in attack aircraft without adequate support, even the tank ambush I posted above really comes down to organization…. and organization is what the Russians are supposed to be good at, and something you use and practice even in peacetime just thru the daily operations of a military organization.

I genuinely think something else is going on. The Russians shouldn’t be this bad. It shouldn’t be taking them this long to defeat Ukraine, even with their poorly trained troops and crappy leadership.

[Aidokea]

...but then again, the Ukrainians do have their endearing qualities...

[Ratatatat]

I enjoy reading each KIA posting.

Reddit has definitely not disappointed when it comes to gnarly videos of dead russkies. One video showed Ukrainians pulling a Russian tank operator from the hatch of his bombed tank... dude was fully intact except for anything above his brain pan.

Other sites (like Telegram's Cargo-200) have daily updates of new pics of dead invaders. This one has be scratching my head... I've seen a few bullet wounds over the years, but nothing like this. Any armchair ballistic experts wish to offer an opinion on the caliber responsible?


Telegram: Contact @rf200_now_world

[CCCSD]

Shrapnel, .50, etc.

[tanksoldier]

Any armchair ballistic experts wish to offer an opinion on the caliber responsible?

Just about anything. Probably not an actual bullet but shrapnel, shell splinters... heck, pieces of rock or wood splinters.

[CCCSD]

Just about anything. Probably not an actual bullet but shrapnel, shell splinters... heck, pieces of rock or wood splinters.

Or ****ed off Rape Victims…

[just joe]

Just about anything. Probably not an actual bullet but shrapnel, shell splinters... heck, pieces of rock or wood splinters.

Is spalling still an issue with modern soviet armor or not?

[Aidokea]

Instead of "mean tweets", we got our diaper-filler in chief telling a rambling nonsensical story about chasing a black child around with a chain:

[CCCSD]

Is spalling still an issue with modern soviet armor or not?

“Modern”…Bwahahahaha…