Russian “False-Flag” operations in the Ukraine

The E wrote:

n7axw wrote:Do you believe that tanks are obsolete?

Don

-

They sort of are. The modern battlefield is very very hostile to them; there is so much organic anti-tank weaponry available to a modern infantry unit that making a tank more than a very expensive death trap is going to take some serious rethinking of the role these vehicles will play in the future.
There's definitely places where what you really want is a highly mobile 120mm gun, but the main role that MBTs are designed for (fighting other MBTs) will have to take a back seat to something more akin to a drone carrier. Using tanks to provide a hardened base from which to launch drones, gather intel and to do counter-drone EW or other countermeasures is going to be an integral part of future armored vehicle doctrine, I believe.

You read a lot about combined arms doctrine, using them in coordination with infantry and air support, but as you say, using them on a modern battle field leaves them vulnerable under the best of circumstances...

Don

-

The E wrote:They sort of are.

They are not. As you've said yourself, there's always going to be the desire for three specific things on the battlefield, no matter (or rather precisely because of) the threat environment: To have a big gun, to be mobile and to be armored.
Will future tanks look different, operate under a different doctrin, work different? Sure they will. Just look at how tanks looked like and what they did in WW1, then how they changed in WW2, and how they changed again in the Cold War.
But will they be obsolete? Nope.

When years ago I worked for our Aerospace division of Defence there was a joke.
Aeronautical engineers design weapons systems, armoured division engineers design targets.

If you follow naval history, one of the interesting technical duels was between the German Krupps and the English Armstrongs.
For decades each would design a gun that could penetrate any known armour, then the other would design armour to defeat that gun.
I suspect that the time has come that no tank that can be sufficiently mobile, can now resist the best shoulder launched missiles.
So perhaps now we will have mobile artillery armoured to resist 30 mm and below, and other different technologies.
Yet I'm a Bolo fan.

clancy688 wrote:They are not. As you've said yourself, there's always going to be the desire for three specific things on the battlefield, no matter (or rather precisely because of) the threat environment: To have a big gun, to be mobile and to be armored.

I mean, that's why I said "sort of". If a given piece of equipment needs to change radically in order to be useful, it is "sort of" obsolete in my book.

Daryl wrote:When years ago I worked for our Aerospace division of Defence there was a joke.
Aeronautical engineers design weapons systems, armoured division engineers design targets.

If you follow naval history, one of the interesting technical duels was between the German Krupps and the English Armstrongs.
For decades each would design a gun that could penetrate any known armour, then the other would design armour to defeat that gun.
I suspect that the time has come that no tank that can be sufficiently mobile, can now resist the best shoulder launched missiles.
So perhaps now we will have mobile artillery armoured to resist 30 mm and below, and other different technologies.
Yet I'm a Bolo fan.

I'm a bolo fan myself. But unless we can match their metallurgy there is no way for us to create a bolo. And remember that bolos themselves were vulnerable...They could be wiped out by the battlefield counters of their own day.

It does seem to me that unless you do have those counters available, tanks are still effective. Ukraine seems to have rather more of them than the Russians which would make Ukrainian tanks more effective in present conflict because of lower probability of being knocked out.

Also, where is the cutting edge Russian tech? Is it being held back for a possible confrontation with NATO? Or is it simply not available in useful numbers meaning that we have been presented with a Potemkin village???


Don

-

n7axw wrote:Also, where is the cutting edge Russian tech? Is it being held back for a possible confrontation with NATO? Or is it simply not available in useful numbers meaning that we have been presented with a Potemkin village???

I discussed this in the "hypersonic missile" thread in the Free-Range board, but short version: They do not exist in meaningful numbers, and they won't for quite some time as every single advanced weapon system the russians have rolled out over the years (meaning, things like the T-14 Armata tank, the Su-57 fighter, their hypersonic missiles) require western technology in order to run and to be built - western tech that russia no longer has easy access to.
The reason for this is simple: Russia is not a functional nation state the way we westerners see these things. It's a collection of mafia bosses trying to keep their share of the pie (the pie being profits generated by exploiting Russia's natural resources). Putin's actions in Donbas, in Georgia, while on one hand being in service to Putin's revanchist plans to reunite the USSR, are also a very easy way to keep oil and gas prices at a level where the russian oil and gas fields can be exploited at a profit.
What Russia is holding back at this point is its nuclear arsenal - and honestly, given how thoroughly the russian army and air force were crippled by corruption, the actual readiness of the strategic forces is probably somewhat questionable.

With Finland and Sweden now making serious moves to join NATO, it seems that The Law of Unforeseen Consequences (or Murphy, take your pick!), has again worked against Putin.
In Finland the public support for NATO membership has jumped from the low ‘30’s to between 60-70%, since the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.
In Sweden likewise it’s now up around 50%, but the consensus is that if Finland joins, Sweden will do likewise.
But to use the foul tempered bear with a tooth ache (the Ukraine!) metaphor. It does raise the question if this is really the time to kick it in the gonads (Sweden Finland joining NATO)?
Then again it might be the best of times to get in under NATO umbrella, what with Putin’s war in the Ukraine not exactly going according to plan.

https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden- ... nato-bids/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61066503

Arol wrote:With Finland and Sweden now making serious moves to join NATO, it seems that The Law of Unforeseen Consequences (or Murphy, take your pick!), has again worked against Putin.
In Finland the public support for NATO membership has jumped from the low ‘30’s to between 60-70%, since the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.
In Sweden likewise it’s now up around 50%, but the consensus is that if Finland joins, Sweden will do likewise.
But to use the foul tempered bear with a tooth ache (the Ukraine!) metaphor. It does raise the question if this is really the time to kick it in the gonads (Sweden Finland joining NATO)?
Then again it might be the best of times to get in under NATO umbrella, what with Putin’s war in the Ukraine not exactly going according to plan.

https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden- ... nato-bids/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61066503

My take is that it is the best of times. If they can't deal with Ukraine, how will Russia deal with Finland and Sweden? Given current levels of corruption, the Russian army needs a purge at the top including Putin himself. The Russian army desperately needs to equip and modernize. Until that happens, about all the bear can do is bark...unless he uses nukes, of course. That is a constant always on the table. Otherwise, do it while the bear is weak and make it a fact accomplished bringing those countries under the nuclear umbrella.

Don

-

Arol wrote:But to use the foul tempered bear with a tooth ache (the Ukraine!) metaphor. It does raise the question if this is really the time to kick it in the gonads (Sweden Finland joining NATO)?

IMHO, the whole "we are worried about NATO" thing is just a smokescreen as far as Putin is concerned. Note how there have been several NATO members on his borders for years now; his worries about NATO are that a country he considers to be inherently russian (like Ukraine) might join it and thus be beyond his grasp, not that NATO would invade.

So yeah, this is absolutely the time to join NATO. All Putin can do right now is bluster, and even that is blunted considerably by the russian army failing to overrun Ukraine's.

I'm sure that Arol can speak more knowledgeably on this than I can but my take from many sources is that.
Russia is now somewhat unique among countries in the area in that it culturally is back in the 1950s, due to a restricted information flow.
When the population appears to accept an argument that Ukraine is run by NAZIs backed by Zionists, western liberals, and gays; credibility is stretched, seeing as how the real NAZIs killed those people by the millions.
When the mighty Russian war machine grinds to a halt with flat bald tyres, with their money for replacements seemingly being spent on $900 M pleasure yachts.
When the population seems to believe that it is ethical to invade a neighbouring country and kill lots of people, as the country shouldn't exist, with the population really being Russians (albeit second class ones).
When the society internally still believes that gays should be illegal, and political dissent shouldn't be tolerated.