Hmmmmpppffff.
So Ritter is on The Gaggle beaking off about the Kraine and making the usual noises, same as MacGregor and the other area analysts: Russia is gearing up for an overwhelming offense, and will be pushing deep into the Kraine any day now. The salient point Ritter brought up is that there is a shelf life on military build ups like this: when you train up your guys, get them all on the same page, and psyched up to go... you have a limited time to move. If you delay too long, you run the risk of the squaddies 'losing their edge' as delays mount on delays and nothing happens.
I seem to recall a similar conundrum with the D Day invasion where the fleet took a massive risk with the weather and sent the troops in under less than perfect conditions. The delays were affecting the morale and efficiency of the men. It's a valid observation.
I am not a squaddie or a tactician but I have watched the proceedings and the players as they say their lines and signal their virtue... but I am also watching what they actually DO. Is Russia preparing for a massive assault? Or are they digging in and preparing to confront NATO?
Putin originally wanted 15 divisions in the Donbas and currently has 17, with more on the way. Every day modern T90s and T14 tanks are showing up. Others are sent to Belarus. He could go any second. And yet... nothing. The Ukes just recently landed a missile on a Russian barracks and killed somewhere around 200 guys - a big win in the war of perception and a propaganda coup. What happens? The Russians target and destroy a few Uke barracks with massive casualties and they smoked several HIMARS batteries... but they did all that without saying a peep. Instead they are trying to arrange a Christmas truce with the Ukes... but they continue to shell the Donbas and the Russians are largely ignoring it. They threw the Ukes back in Bakmeht and a couple other areas but in terms of territory...they only took enough to make it easier to kill the Ukes. They are not pressing their advantage.
I am beginning to suspect that the Russians are going to stay where they are - maybe finish the conquest of Russian territories in the Donbas... and continue to quietly flatten what little is left of the Kraine from the safety of their entrenchments and fortified bastions? I remember early in this conflict, many experts agreed that Russian military doctrine is to keep their supply lines as short as possible after seeing how extended supply lines worked for the Germans. One has to remember that the Donbas is the only worthwhile territory in the Kraine. The rest is all rural and agrarian.
What do you think? Is Pulter playing the long game? Or are Ritter and MacGregor right?
You could be right but a Russian see’s no harm in flattening to teach a lesson. Max time window from spin up to strike is ten days.
ReplyDeleteYup - if it’s going to happen… it will happen soon.
DeleteIf I remember correctly, one of Vlad's original requirements is that Ukraine be de-militarized. That could be accomplished by Russia just staying put, and wiping out whatever Ukraine sends at them. It seems that Ukraine isn't going to stop until they either push Russia back, or they run out of people and equipment.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. The war with the Kraine was won months ago. Russia is fighting NATO now. I’ve seen some of the new Uke cemeteries…and they make Arlington look like a postage stamp in comparison to size.
DeleteOne noticeable thing about the original Russian invasion was that it was, in concept, very similar to their invasion of Georgia in 2008: long-term support for separatists in pro-Russian territories, then a fast campaign to occupy said territories combined with a thrust to the capital aimed at forcing the government to concede. Both invasions also happened while the world was watching the Olympics, too ... except ... the invasion of Ukraine seems to have been a couple of weeks late, well into the Winter Paralympics. So, it's possible the Russians are simply (still) having logistics problems and the big push is still to come.
ReplyDeleteYou can well be right. As it stands right now, they are so well entrenched that any assault on their fortified positions is flat out suicide. I’ve heard the Ukes have burned up 20 to 40 thousand squaddies in Bakmeht alone. The logistics of supporting an entrenchment are going to be much different than for an invasion. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when the military analysts meet and talk honestly about what is actually happening…
DeleteIf you look at Russian history holding terrain ISN'T their focus. They always take it back.
ReplyDeleteDestroying the ability of the enemy IS their focus.
Once you destroy (OR starve out with scorched earth tactics USED with ALL Invaders against Russia from Napolean onward) you can counterattack the shattered remains.
With the kill ratios so much higher letting the Ukrainians march into the artillery (BUT, BUT, BUT Aesop said they are out of artillery shells and their Inaccurate guns are blowing up from overuse...LOL) Putin doesn't have to waste soldiers WHILE the NATO folks ARE running out of shells and missiles. American 155 shells are MADE IN South Korea. Talk about outsourcing your military...
Raytheon and the CONgress's Money Laundromat are pretty happy to let Ukraine fight to the last Ukranian and now it seems the Poles.
Putin needs only to outwait NATO as open protests in all EU countries against the Ukraine war and their freezing in the dark with crazy high food prices is starting to gain ground.
Putin also has to prevent giving the USA an excuse to drop nuclear weapons. America has been doing everything they can (Like the Christmas Barracks attack) to trigger Russia into doing something awful for a "Gulf of Tonkin event.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. The US Petrodollar is what is being "Defended" in Ukraine. But every day more and more trade are going non-US Dollar and Treasury Bills are being sold reducing the number of US Dollars in Foreign reserves that ALSO creates MOAR Inflation in America as they come home to roost.
According to https://www.worldeconomics.com/
That lists national debt as a % of GDP
America 128%
Russia 12.5%
Thus, WHY America is fighting the proxy war in Ukraine, the politicians are acting their role as blood sucking leeches and ticks, but the REAL reason is the Debt of the USA is in danger of being declared Bankrupt.
Agreed. Further…I might only add that the Russians are now reaching out to other markets and countries that quietly seething about dealing with Imperial America and their fecklessness in world trade. Given the opportunity (and these days, the encouragement) to seek other partners and alliances…that ain’t gonna end well for us at all…
DeleteRussia, China....all the BRICS nations as well as dozens of other countries have been planning a dollar-decoupling for decades. You don't think they all just "suddenly" thought about doing this, do you?
DeleteSo if this has been in the works for some time, do you think they'll fail? That's the big question.
I also like to remind people that the Western world, the US, western Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand comprise a mere 10% of the worlds population, 20% of which are immigrants with no appreciation of "western" values.
I believe the rest of the world have achieved the position where they feel they can get rid of US worldwide hegemony for good.
I don't know what Putin is doing but I know doggone well he has a plan. Biden's fags had better stop taunting that guy. Biden's boys are gonna have their fingers poke thru the toilet paper and wind up with shit all over themselves.
ReplyDeleteLong game, time is on the Russians side. Although keeping troops razor sharp is a hard thing, its not impossible. Training rotations that introduce new ideas and equipment is one way. Also, what are they doing that we are not seeing? Building supply depots? Hidden maintenance shops? What we do get a glimpse of is they are chewing up everything that is thrown at them and learning a lot about NATO systems capabilities.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget, each HIMARS missile costs $150K and takes a while to produce. They're burning them up faster than the factory can produce them. I remember reading somewhere in my youth that the next war will not have the two or more years for US industry to convert to arms production--it'll be whoever has stuff left to keep prosecuting the conventional war wins. However, the current administration may go nuke--which is scary for all of us.
Deleterussia is orthodox. christmas is tomorrow according to their calendar. think about it.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of Russia's invasion, I opined that it would be limited. Why? Strategically, Russia needs a warm water port in the Med but it would be a hassle to take over and administer/control the rest of the country (see Iraq and Afghanistan for examples). So, it would take territory it needs to reach its strategic objective(s), then leave the rest of Ukraine as a buffer between it and NATO. But Russia will flatten the crap out of everything that is in that buffer zone--ON A REGULAR BASIS. For example, a couple of Ukrainian cities in the buffer zone gets some of its electric plants running on Monday, by Wednesday they're all toast. I'd bet all the major highways capable of supporting semi-trucks in western Ukraine will be cratered (they'll use the cratering bombs used to destroy airport runways), any road-repair crews sent out will be killed by "partisans"--with one or two really junior guys left alive and very badly beaten (perhaps missing a hand--can't work for sure now) to tell the story, and anything larger than a SUV will be destroyed--even those sporting a Red Cross. Expect "partisans" to kill everybody involved in law-keeping (because without cops with guns to enforce their laws, mayors and administrators are toothless)--and general chaos and crime will reign in the buffer zone with everything in short supply, which is a good thing for Russia and bad thing for NATO. If the UN insists on a peace-keeping force, Russia will insist that all the soldiers come from African Muslim countries (expect an explosion of mulatto babies within nine months of the first peacekeepers arriving) and the HQ staff from China (all those pretty Ukrainian mail-order brides will become Chinese officers' concubines).
ReplyDeleterussians do not want ukraine
ReplyDeletetomorrow, saturday, is julian calendar Christmas
prez of ukraine [courtesy of swamp creatures] has attacked the Church!
not sitting well with uke john doe
pray for them
perhaps God will send their fake prez back to jerusalem where his domicile is.
Forty years ago I was serving a two-year stint as a 15J10 -- Lance Operations / Fire Direction Control Specialist for the Lance Missile System in Charlie Battery 2d Bn 42d Field Artillery (Lance) in McKee Barracks Crailsheim W. Germany. It was one of six understrength Lance missile units and one of three which fired nukes as opposed to the HE cluster-bomb units (and the Germans has the cluster-bomb) Lances as well. I was sucked into the #6 rated Lance unit because I only signed in for the two-year option and was deemed unlikely to re-enlist. Later in 1986-87 I played Army Reserve with 155mm M-109 tracked howitzers with the Joplin Army Reserve.
ReplyDeleteI had already gotten two years of credits in a community college when I transferred to the University of Rolla -- Missouri to become a mechanical engineer and refused to do the work so I decided to take a break and sign up with the Army at the tail end of the Carter Administration for one of its combat arms MOSes for two years. Regrettably I was judged color blind enough to not be allowed to become a field artillery surveyor and didn't want to have anything to do with infantry so I became something that required working with logarithms and communications which had the highest educational VEAP 'kicker' of $15,000 of educational benefits, i.e. Lance Fire direction and control. Which also meant guaranteed being sent off to Germany as it was a very small MOS of a few hundred and no being sent off to El Salvador which was a hot spot.
So I got sent off to the #6-rated battalion, and seen the Army first-hand with the smartest MOS, i.e. missile FDC which involved communications and camoflage operations and the dumbest which were the cooks and mechanics. The missile crewmen were also a dumb lot except for the white PFC or Sp4 who were the actual missile aimers.
Since we were a nuclear unit there were all manner of generals and colonels running around and they were to my mind idiots even back then.
Since then my MOS is much larger. They pulled the Lances and Pershing I's from Germany in 1985-86 after Reagan cut a deal with Gorbachev. My MOS became that of the Multiple Launch Rocket System and since most of the tube units have been replaced by MLRS it is a far more common MOS.
Pt 1 -- My 'expertise'
Pt 2. My predictions
ReplyDeleteRegarding Putin. Today Jan. 7th is Orthodox Christmas according to the Julian Calendar. Putin is having a cease-fire for Russian Christmas.
Nor does Putin have to do anything. He is grinding up the 6th Urkanian mobilization of 50-60 year olds in Bakmut. He has pulled his forces to the defensible eastern bank of the Dnieper which acts as a moat now that the bridges were destroyed. The only further territory wanted is Odessa and the remaining Black Sea coastline, thus making the jewkraine land-locked.
According to Russian conspiracy theories the jews want to make what was Khazaria in the jewkraine back into an Ashkenazi homeland after Prince Stanislaus the grandfather of Prince Vladimir scattered the Khazars who were the former Hittites/Hethites Canaanites and set free the Magyars to roam into Hungary in 910 A.D. These Khazars were actually Canaanites who were scattered by the Galations around 1179 BC in the Bronze Age Collapse and migrated to north of the Caucaus and set up their own empire from 600 to 910 AD after converting to Talmudic jewdism.
So this winter season, Putin has plenty of time to destroy all the bridges over rivers to deny motorized transport and especially Bradley and Abrams tanks which weigh too much to traverse Ukrainian bridges. Cutting off NATO weaponry and resupply along with destroying electrical, water and sewer grids, sending most of the women and children as refugees to Poland and the rest of NATO while cutting off the oil and gas means that NATO will collapse with no more weapons sent to finish off the limited Russian offensive to take what little remains on the Black Sea that the Russians want.
In all these wars that the Russians have had since Charles XII, Napoleon, and Hitler initially the Russians lose. After the stupid and unlucky are killed eventually the Russian forces drive them out and the Russians as a Continental power succeeds with a blooded first-class army.
I predict that by the end of January or middle of February the Russian offensive against the rest of the Black Sea and Odessa to Transnistra will be in effect, that Russia will cut off NATO resupply, and by May both rump jewkraine and EuroZOG will be freezing and starving and de-industrialized and it will all be over except the whining.
Hail Victory !!!
Pastor Martin Lindstedt
Church of Jesus Christ Christian / Aryan Nations of Missouri
Well thanks for all that Martin. We seem to be in agreement: the Russians are not idiots, in fact, they are damned cagey and anyone that underestimates them is a fool. And their removal of jewish influence in their economics and politics was masterful. By doing that their economy is surging, the money they make goes back to the Russian people - and the jew oligarchs of Globohomo are cut out. (Which, IMHO - is what this war is REALLY about). Their defence industry is spun right up. As you allude to - Russia is now replacing all the old junk they lost at the outset with new stuff while the Kraine has to beg, borrow and steal whatever it can get. That one looks especially grim too: Russia’s pumping billions into its military while the west is pumping its wealth and treasure into failing social programs for an exploding vibrant/welfare class. We can only lose: we are sending our best and brightest to defend ungrateful losers and imported cretins from the third world… while the Russians defend their families and homelands. It’s even worse for the Ukes - they are being sent to die (literally commit suicide) for a creepy, corrupt jewish puppet. The psychological dynamics setting up here are fascinating in themselves.
ReplyDeleteHey - thanks for dropping in Martin!ðð
I'm no expert, but it looks like they are easing up for their Christmas and waiting for the big freeze to hit. Last few vidyas I saw the ground was freezing but still gooey. Time and climate are on their side. They'll initiate suck-factor 5 soon enough.
ReplyDeleteAgrarian territory may become more valuable in the not too distant future.
ReplyDelete