Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 2)

[wolfpup]

@Fiendish_Astronaut

What is it with Russians and washing machines?

Apparently, they don’t have any.

[eschereal]

@Fiendish_Astronaut

What is it with Russians and washing machines?

It should be obvious.

• take out the drive system and sell it to a repair shop
• use those rubls to buy an electric heater and a bunch of copper tubing
• cut up 5 Kg of potatoes and 5 Kg of beets to put in the drum
• run about 32L of water into the drum to boil the beets and potatoes for several hours
• as the mixture cools and sits for several days, you remove the hot water inlet hose, attach the copper tubing, and use the hose to make a seal for the drum
• build a good clamp for the lid, put in the seal, and close the lid tightly
• put a jug under the tubing and turn the heater on
• once you have collected as much as you can, drain the drum into a bucket and sell the mash to a pig farmer

As to the agitator, if it is plastic, it should probably be removed and found some other use for.

[Askance]

@eschereal

As to the agitator …

Don’t they usually fall out of windows?

[Walken_After_Midnight]

It looks like Putin’s plan to freeze Europe hasn’t panned out the way he hoped:

(((Tendar)))

[Magiver]

Meanwhile it’s -80F in Siberia. (-62C)

[filmstar-en]

I do wonder how long it will be before these lower prices filter through to the public. In the UK, I suspect it will be a year, maybe longer. The UK government has had to bail out many of the fuel supply companies in the retail market.

There is a cost to pumping more gas and quickly re-engineering the network to get supplies from the west. Building LPG handling facilities to replace the Russian gas piped in from the east. There is still a lot of work to be done. Such big projects usually take years to complete.

The money for that will come from somewhere: either gas users or the taxes they pay. The spot prices for gas do not bear much relation to the prices agreed when when long term supply contracts are negotiated.

There is a financial cost to all of this. Europe will pay more for gas from other sources and Russia has lost its biggest customer.

I’d like to see an assesment of how this will impact Putin’s war chest. He started off with a $650 Billion in reserves. Besides losing Oil and Gas revenue Russia military expenditure must be enormous.

When will he run out of money, I wonder.

[Cardigan]

@filmstar-en

I’d like to see an assesment of how this will impact Putin’s war chest. He started off with a $650 Billion in reserves. Besides losing Oil and Gas revenue Russia military expenditure must be enormous

And around $300 billion of that was frozen by the west right off the bat.

[Lumpy]

@aceplace57

I remember my History teacher said weapons used and tested in the Spanish Civil War were improved for WWII.

The Bradley got tested and improved in Iraq.

I think we’re seeing the same thing with NATO weapons in Ukraine.

Germany discovered irs Puma APC aren’t reliable. I’d speculate a lot of NATO equipment is getting throughly tested in Ukraine.

NATO countries will make improvements as needed.

Famously it’s said that there’s nothing stupider than an army in peacetime. This applies to weapons systems too. Absolutely nothing can replace the reality of war when it comes to testing weapons.

[not_what_you_d_expect]

I’m seeing several tweets that there is a missile attack hitting Kyiv about 40 or so minutes ago. These poor people.

Yaroslava Antipina

[bob_2]

Those Challenger 2’s are the DB’s. They even have a built-in electric kettle so the crew can make themselves a cuppa.

[iiandyiiii]

From what I’ve read, the Challengers are more of a symbolic gift - harder to maintain and needing specialized ammo - while the Leopards would really be a great help, being easier to maintain and using common ammo.

[aceplace57]

Why would anyone design tanks that require special roads and bridges? Hey lets invade country X. Can’t because their roads are narrow and the bridges won’t support our tanks. That would leave everyone feeling pretty dumb.

It sounds like NATO is very unprepared for war. The members are paper tigers. The members have just enough functioning equipment for their combined forces maneuvers.

A tractor won’t drag a 69 ton Leopard 2 out of a ditch.
Link Tanks will help Kyiv break the deadlock. But its partners now face a fork in the road | Ukraine | The Guardian

Despite these sound operational reasons for providing Ukraine with armour, the provision of Nato-designed main battle tanks presents some major challenges. The Leopard 2, weighing about 69 tonnes, and Challenger 2, weighing 72 tonnes, are more than 20 tonnes heavier than the Soviet-designed main battle tanks currently operated by Ukraine. There is little Ukrainian infrastructure along which such heavy vehicles can travel, while their engineering and recovery vehicles are optimised to support Soviet designs. Putting aside the training needed to maintain and fight with Nato-designed tanks, they would also need to be provided alongside combat engineering and mobility support vehicles if they were to be employable at any scale.
It is this requirement for enablers that poses hard choices on Nato members wanting to offer Ukraine their vehicles. After the cold war, frontline tank fleets declined significantly, while the cutbacks in bridging, breaching and transport and recovery vehicles have been even more severe. Most countries operate the bare minimum of these vehicles to meet their Nato commitments and even in these small fleets vehicle unavailability due to low maintenance is a problem because of underinvestment during the “war on terror”.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

After the cold war, frontline tank fleets declined significantly, while the cutbacks in bridging, breaching and transport and recovery vehicles have been even more severe. Most countries operate the bare minimum of these vehicles to meet their Nato commitments** and even in these small fleets vehicle unavailability due to low maintenance is a problem because of underinvestment during the “war on terror”.

Indeed. Here’s the number of Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 tanks the UK and Germany has (Wikipedia):

UK/Challenger 2 tanks: 386 delivered (227 operational) + 22 driver training units
Germany/Leopard 2 tanks: approximately 266 Leopard 2 tanks in service as of 2020

Here’s how many M1 Abrams tanks the US has:

United States – United States Army and United States Marine Corps received over 8,100 M1, M1A1 and M1A2 tanks combined.

• U.S. Army – 2,509 total, 750 M1A1SA, 1,605 M1A2 SEPv2, 154 M1A2 SEPv3 (some 3,700 more M1A1 and M1A2 in storage)

By the Oryx count, Russia has now lost 1,614 tanks in the war.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

I’m sure the UK would provide alongside to Ukraine maintenance support, ammo and - maybe - teabags.

Has there ever been a military in history equipped from so many sources? It must be a tough logistics job. Not only are Ukraine using a mixture of Ukrainian, Soviet/Russian and NATO/rest of world equipment/ammo, the NATO/rest of world equipment is itself derived from many different sources.

One contender for such a mishmash military, ironically, would be the Soviet military of World War II, with the equipment donated to them by the Allies.

The US supplied the USSR with:

In total, the U.S. deliveries to the USSR through Lend-Lease amounted to $11 billion in materials: over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386 of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans); 11,400 aircraft (of which 4,719 were Bell P-39 Airacobras, 3,414 were Douglas A-20 Havocs and 2,397 were Bell P-63 Kingcobras) and 1.75 million tons of food.

…

The United States delivered to the Soviet Union from October 1, 1941, to May 31, 1945, the following: 427,284 trucks, 13,303 combat vehicles, 35,170 motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 2,670,371 tons of petroleum products (gasoline and oil) or 57.8 percent of the aviation fuel including nearly 90 percent of high-octane fuel used, 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats, sugar, flour, salt, etc.), 1,911 steam locomotives, 66 diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars. Provided ordnance goods (ammunition, artillery shells, mines, assorted explosives) amounted to 53 percent of total domestic consumption.

Britain supplied the USSR with:

Between June 1941 and May 1945, Britain delivered to the USSR:

3,000+ Hurricane aircraft
4,000+ other aircraft
27 naval vessels
5,218 tanks (including 1,380 Valentines from Canada)
5,000+ anti-tank guns
4,020 ambulances and trucks
323 machinery trucks (mobile vehicle workshops equipped with generators and all the welding and power tools required to perform heavy servicing)
1,212 Universal Carriers and Loyd Carriers (with another 1,348 from Canada)
1,721 motorcycles
£1.15bn ($1.55bn) worth of aircraft engines
1,474 radar sets
4,338 radio sets
600 naval radar and sonar sets
Hundreds of naval guns
15 million pairs of boots

In total 4 million tonnes of war material including food and medical supplies were delivered.

Lend-Lease

[iiandyiiii]

I’m sure the UK will offer support, but if what I read is correct, it will still be logistically more complicated to support Challengers than Leopards, and more complications means more possibilities for something going wrong, meaning reduced availability for combat (because the ammo truck broke down, or a shipment is late, or the wrong parts were delivered, or the technicians don’t have the right training to repair it, etc.).

As a professional military logistician, I feel very comfortable in saying that logistics is king. In general, ten “average” weapons systems that are almost always available for combat are much more valuable than ten top-of-the-line systems that are only available for combat about half the time.

That being said, I’m sure Ukraine will welcome the Challengers, and good on the UK for sending them.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

What Russia does:

(((Tendar)))

[silenus]

@iiandyiiii

In general, ten “average” weapons systems that are almost always available for combat are much more valuable than ten top-of-the-line systems that are only available for combat about half the time.

Shermans vs Tigers.

If necessary, the Challengers can be relegated to “guard” positioning, securing a strategic area that isn’t in the forefront of the action but still in need of adequate defense. Then use the Leopards and Warsaw Pact stuff for active encirclement and destruction of everything Russian/Wagner.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

@silenus

If necessary, the Challengers can be relegated to “guard” positioning,

I would think it better to have a diamond-tipped spear.

[Snarky_Kong]

@aceplace57

It sounds like NATO is very unprepared for war. The members are paper tigers. The members have just enough functioning equipment for their combined forces maneuvers.

I find this comment odd when spare NATO equipment is destroying the Russian military. I mean NATO isn’t supplying ATACMS because it’s too good, but ATACMS are 30 years old and being replaced by the precision strike missile. NATO won’t supply F-16s, which are a generation behind modern aircraft.

NATO probably needs to reconsider production of things like 155mm shells and GMLRS rockets, as well as incorporating more drones, but if anything NATO is going to feel much much better about potential conflict with Russia after this.

[Bootb]

@aceplace57

It sounds like NATO is very unprepared for war. The members are paper tigers. The members have just enough functioning equipment for their combined forces maneuvers.

Outside of the UK, the European members of NATO have never really contributed much to the alliance in a military sense. Their main contribution has been geopolitical.