You seem to swallow whole the terribly slanted and nonsensical stuff that Putin’s propaganda spews out.
Komrad! Kongradulations! You didn’t lose your job in Putin’s Prigozhin Purge! I see the phrase ‘back of the envelope math’ is another English idiom you are unfamiliar with, much like how you couldn’t understand the word ‘backfilling’ when it came to South Korea backfilling artillery shells from its production for countries supplying shells to Ukraine. It means a quick and dirty rough estimate. Here:
back-of-the-envelope
adjective
: done quickly to provide a rough estimate : not exact
did a back-of-the-envelope calculation
His method is, in effect, a back-of-the-envelope time-and-motion study.
The point, which you clearly chose to miss - unless you really are that stupid - is that the money Prigozhin grifted off the Russian military could have bought them 2,500,000 152mm shells, which is the answer to his question “Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where’s the fucking ammo?” The entire country runs off of graft and corruption, which is why all those tanks allegedly in storage turned out to be in such bad shape that they’ve resorted to pulling out ancient T-62s and even T-54s, why that 40km long convoy of trucks headed to Kiev at the start of the war turned out to have tires that flattened themselves, why the call up off 300,000 reserves was such a total shitshow, etc., etc.
Hey dumbass, he had the artillery. That’s why he was screaming obscenities at the Soviet Russian high command that they were shorting him 70% of the shells that they had promised him.
Well, kinda no. But at points in the past I thought that they wouldn’t be stupid enough to invade Ukraine with 1/3 of the troops that would be needed to accomplish the job, or blow up a dam they had been in control of for a year now.
But no, they’re really that fucking stupid, and here we are debating whether they’re going to do more stupid shit. Let’s just say that you’re going to have to provide some stunning fucking evidence that the Russians didn’t blow it up if it does actually blow up.
I’ll put down $20 he leans towards Ukraine having done it, only because he can’t see a tactical advantage for either side to do it, and he defaults to Ukraine having done anything bad. Just like he said when the Nova Kakhovka dam blew up.
It’s as likely as blowing up a dam which had been under Russian control for about the same time. If it can make some distractions for the other side, it’s to their immediate advantage.
Note that Kedikat believes Ukraine blew up the Nova Kakhovka Dam, not Russia.
Well, probably. Does anyone who follow the news believe that?
Russian influence continues crumbling as an ex-Warsaw Pact country plans a deal with Ukraine.
“Bulgaria is nearing an agreement to sell two Russian-made nuclear reactors and other critical equipment to Ukraine’s state-owned atomic energy company as Europe moves to roll back Moscow’s hold on the continent’s power supplies.”
“Under the deal, which is still being negotiated, Sofia’s state power company NEK would sell Ukrainian state nuclear company Energoatom equipment from the unfinished Belene Nuclear Power Plant for at least 600 million euros, or around $650 million, officials and others familiar with the situation said.”
“If it goes through, the transaction would mark the first time since the start of the war in Ukraine that Russian-made nuclear-power equipment is used to help boost energy output for Kyiv.”
“The fact that Bulgaria, a former Soviet satellite state long friendly with Moscow, is considering the deal is a sign of how much Russian clout has eroded in the European Union’s eastern states.”
Right now Russia is too busy concentrating on foreign adventures that requires substantial firepower right next door. I’m sure that if they come out of the current conflict in a position where they feel up to trying to project deniable hard power, they can find some other patsy to pin it on.
That will be complicated by the fact that Putin recently came out and said that Wagner has been fully funded by the Kremlin. Previously other nations were diplomatically pretending to believe the Russian line about Wagner being unaffiliated with the Russian government, at least in public.
That said, I think the past year has made other governments less reluctant to call out obvious Russian lies in the first place, so the utility of a Wagner successor in deniability might have been gone anyways.
Apart from the obvious falsehood of ‘Wagner is integrated into the Russian military’ which I’m sure comes as a surprise to both Wagner and the Russian military - I mean, who are all those tent camps being set up in Belarus to house Wagnerites taking the option of going to Belarus being set up for - it turns out what’s happening with Prigozhin is a very open question. Lukashenko says he’s not in Belarus, and his private plane has been tracked flying out of Belarus to Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
In other news, the US has agreed to send Ukraine 155mm DPICM:
The capabilities in this package include:
- Additional munitions for Patriot air defense systems;
- AIM-7 missiles for air defense;
- Stinger anti-aircraft systems;
- Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);
- 31 155mm Howitzers;
- 155mm artillery rounds, including DPICM, and 105mm artillery rounds;
Wasn’t Komrad still repeating his chicken little imitation that the sky is falling, and the West doesn’t have enough shells as recently as a day ago?
Yeah, well, apart from that being repeatedly demonstrated to him to be patently untrue and his rather shoddy attempt at back of the envelope (see what I did there Komrad?) math to calculate annual US 155mm shell production based on incorrect production figures from a single plant in Scranton, not only is the West not having a hard time getting supplies for their own guns, a whole new source of over 2,000,000 rounds, according to some sources possibly close to 3,000,000 rounds that are devastatingly effective against trench lines has just been opened up to Ukraine by them.
For what it’s worth I have heard but have been unable to source a cite that Ukraine has agreed not to use them in built up (i.e., urban) areas where post war clean up would be the most problematic. And for the sake of repetition, Russia has been using cluster munitions in Ukraine since the start of the war*, Turkey has been sending Ukraine DPICM on the sly since late last year, and the US, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey all are not signatories to the cluster munition ban.
*And without any such restrictions or discrimination in their use in place. Remember the Russian missile that hit the railway station at Kramatorsk way back on 8 April 2022 where thousands of civilians were at the station awaiting evacuation to escape Russian shelling that killed 63 civilians including 9 children and wounded over 150 civilians? Yeah, that had a cluster munition warhead.
The Russian MOD is offering those Wagner troops who did not take part in the mutiny to sign contracts with the Russian military. Officially Wagner will become a part of the Russian military. Not a PMC. Those that do not sign up would I suppose be free to join up with whatever some part of Wagner PMC might evolve into. Could be various scenarios. A real independent PMC. One that is once again controlled at some legal distance from the Russian MOD. It is breaking into some pieces. But a lot of it is going to contract with the Russian MOD.
I was not considering Cluster munitions. Most people were not.
Even at 85000 a month. That is short of the 5000 shells a day of average Ukraine use. And it will be a few years to reach that production rate. Plus the U.S. will want to supply itself and some others out of that amount.
European production information and needs.
One of these is not like the other.
Oh yeah, about those former Soviet bases in Belarus having tent camps set up in them for the Wagnerites choosing the ‘go to Belarus’ rather than ‘sign up with Russian military that they look down upon and despise’ did you notice there is tent space for 8,000-9,000, which just happens to match up nicely with the estimates of the actual size of Wagner rather than the 25,000 Prigozhin claimed?
That’s awfully funny, considering the fact that people were considering it 11 months ago, and you were told it was being considered 11 months ago. Facts just fall out of that head of yours so easily Komrad. You should probably go have that looked at.
I was just about to type that even not considering DPICM stockpiles, your chicken little routine of the West is running out of shells is flat out wrong and there you go making a fool out of yourself again considering ‘the West’ to only include the US when it comes to 155mm shell production when it’s been pointed out to you that there are more 155mm NATO standard shells manufactured outside the US than inside it. Oh, and the fact that the US has a huge stockpile of those shells and nobody to shoot them at currently. Oh yeah, and the fact that Russian ammunition consumption has dropped by 75% because they don’t have an endless supply of shells themselves. Then there’s also the fact that it’s been pointed out to you that in every major war since the invention of indirect fire artillery there has been a shortage of artillery shells shortly after the war began because militaries repeatedly underestimate both the rate with which they will be consumed and how long the war will last.
https://ww1blog.osborneink.com/?p=3704
Are you going for a record on the number of times you can be wrong in under a half hour in this thread Komrad? Kongrats, I think you must be getting close if you haven’t already taken the record!
Oh, hey Komrad! I know how you just love to crow on about Russian artillery superiority, how the West is imperiling itself by providing Ukraine with shells, how Wagner was just doing “All that whining about not enough ammo and other supplies.” I was hoping you might care to comment on the statements from Major General Ivan Popov, who was dismissed from his command of the 58th Combined Arms Army for making said statements.
A high-profile Russian general in command of forces in occupied southern Ukraine says he has been dismissed from his post after accusing the defense ministry of betraying Russian soldiers by not providing sufficient support.
General Ivan Popov was the commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army, which has been involved in heavy fighting in the Zaporizhzhia region. He is one of the most senior officers involved in the Russian campaign in Ukraine.
In a voice note, Popov said that he raised questions about “the lack of counter-battery combat, the absence of artillery reconnaissance stations and the mass deaths and injuries of our brothers from enemy artillery. I also raised a number of other problems and expressed it all at the highest level frankly and extremely harshly.”
Popov said that the Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu then dismissed him.
“As many commanders of divisional regiments said today, the servicemen of the armed forces of Ukraine could not break through our army from the front, [but] our senior commander hit us from the rear, treacherously and vilely decapitating the army at the most difficult and tense moment,” he said.
I don’t think I said the West was imperilling itself. Just that they need to increase production capacity. By all reports the Russians do have more artillery and artillery ammo. Using more than Ukraine forces are.
But. That general may be correct regarding that area of the front. Not all areas of the fight have the same amount of materiel and personnel. It is constantly shifting on both sides. He is also responsible for utilizing what he has to best advantage.
The situation there may be poor. The reasons are likely complex.
Komrad! You heard my call and responded! I am truly blessed, let us go to the liquor store to buy a few bottles of vodka forthwith to drown ourselves in the party line!
Because, you see, the area of the front that the 58th Combined Arms Army is responsible for isn’t some random and tiny sector of the front. It commands everything on the front in Zaporizhzhia oblast, i.e. the entire frontline of the Ukrainian offensive aimed at driving to the Sea of Azov and cutting the Russian front in two and separating Crimea from the land bridge. Here, have a look on the deepstate map:
DeepStateMAP | Day 505 | Map of the war in Ukraine
See that symbol right in the center of the city of Melitopol with a tiny x in the middle of it with the ‘legs’ of the x not touching the sides of the symbol? Click on that. That’s the headquarters of the 58th Combined Arms Army. Now see every single other symbol of a Russian formation on the entire visible part of the map linked? Those are all subordinate formations of the 58th CAA. Feel free to zoom out the map now.
Oh yeah, and he’s not responsible for utilizing what he has to best advantage, Komrad. I think you missed the entire point of what I wrote once again. See, he got shitcanned for telling his superiors the truth about his situation, he’s not responsible for anything anymore. That’s some other poor schmuck’s job now.