History in the Making: Russian Invasion

In reply to frenchyd :

I'm not going down this path except to correct one factually incorrect statement. The French were an absolute monarchy and had exactly zero interest in promoting the idea of democracy (a handful of idealistic nobles notwithstanding). What they did have an interest in was weakening Britain, and the American Revolution provided an excellent opportunity to do that at low cost and little risk. And after all, how dangerous could a bunch of Enlightenment-inspired radicals 3,000 miles away be to the French monarchy...?

In reply to 02Pilot :

And the idea that the English were on their heels from the beginning when in fact it was the other way around for the first several years. 

In reply to bobzilla :

True from an operational sense, although one could argue that the strategic limitations imposed by the theater made the whole British effort doomed from the start. But certainly it wasn't until 1777 and the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga that the British started to realize the trouble they were in.

02Pilot said:

In reply to frenchyd :

I'm not going down this path except to correct one factually incorrect statement. The French were an absolute monarchy and had exactly zero interest in promoting the idea of democracy (a handful of idealistic nobles notwithstanding). What they did have an interest in was weakening Britain, and the American Revolution provided an excellent opportunity to do that at low cost and little risk. And after all, how dangerous could a bunch of Enlightenment-inspired radicals 3,000 miles away be to the French monarchy...?

Absolutely  correct!   As far as you took it.  The French nobility was helping America for their own reasons.  The ultimate cost of their lives was due to their own excesses and failure to understand their responsibility to the people they ruled. 
 However Americans read, quoted, and were inspired by those Free French thinkers.    
As well as the help and aide they gave America. 
 

   I apologize to Pilot o2 and Others.  Today has been terribly disjointed for me and I missed the reason I went from Putin to France in the first place.  

    Just like the French Nobility of that era Putin forgot his duty to the people he rules.  If that should result in his trip to the "Guillotine" I think it's only Justice.  
   Look at the mess Russia is in aside  from the military one.   
     Health care in Russia is less than 3rd world. Aides is rampant, as is TB.  Medicine and medical equipment is virtually not available for the average Russian.  Drugs are worse than here in America. While alcoholism affects more than 40% of the population.  
 Schools and Education are in a sad state. While poverty is the norm.  
  The birth rate is worse than Japan  and that makes it non-sustainable.  Only 145 million people occupy 1/8 th of the globes land mass. 
     

02Pilot said:

In reply to bobzilla :

True from an operational sense, although one could argue that the strategic limitations imposed by the theater made the whole British effort doomed from the start. But certainly it wasn't until 1777 and the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga that the British started to realize the trouble they were in.

And, not coincidentally, that's when the French decided to join the fun, too. They wanted to make sure they weren't backing a losing horse.

Oh one thing I meant to mention.  Someone asked about "pop-a-top" Russian tanks a while back.  I heard a good explanation for this (and a bit of interesting history).

If you look at Russian tanks (T-72 being the most popular, yes, that means it was first deployed in 1970!), they are comparatively small, especially the turrets.  A small tank of course has its advantages, and a small turret very much does since in many cases, that is all you can see.  The reason why they can make the turret so small (western turrets are much larger) is because they have three man crews (commander, driver, gunner) and only two in the turret.  Wester tanks have a third crew member in the turret, the loader.

Russia gets away with this by using an auto-loader for the main gun.  What is the downside of an auto-loader you ask?  Well, a smaller crew means any maintenance is harder but... also means that the ammunition for the main gun needs to be stored in the turret (I think you know where I am going here). Of course, having the ammo stored inside the turret means most any penetrating turret hit results in lighting off the main gun ammo.  Pressure builds up very quickly, pressure has to go somewhere... turret flies off!

As noted previously, many times the turret is all you see, and not a huge surprise here, many of the ATM's (e.g. Javelin) aim for the turret. Yes Demitri, that is ammo you are sitting on:

Interesting historical tidbit:  You may have heard about how dominant German tanks where on the western front in WWII.  You also may have heard how the US discovered that they could effectively deal with the German tanks if they had numbers.  You might think that they would rush them and surround them and hit them in the soft spots, but apparently one of the most effective tactics was a bit different.

Imagine being in a tank, specifically the (steel) turret, and a tank round (14lb shell traveling 1300 mph), hits the turret, but does not penetrate.  It would be a bit harsh to say the least.  Well, bounce a number of shells off of a turret, and you have what you might call "ringing the bell".  Most, less than super hardened tank crews, would want none of that and would tend to bail out.

In reply to aircooled :

there's some video online from a Chinese "news" crew.  Their dashcam captures a T-72 getting hit and its turret blowing a solid 100 feet in the air...  

In reply to stroker :

On another forum, discussing the hilarity of how badly designed Russian tanks are, it was brought to light that in Ukraine, Russian turrets have been found atop five story buildings.

The original idea was to Zerg Rush so many tanks through the Fulda Gap that no defense could stop them.  Hence the autoloader, which in theory (but not practice) is faster than manual loading, and requires 25% less crew, presumably so they can field 33% more tanks.  And survivability is not really important because the tanks and crews are cheap expendables.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

and it makes me think of all those SPI tabletop wargames I played back around 1980 when I was teasing the idea of Army ROTC....   I wonder if anyone could gauge how the M-60 would have actually fared against the T-72.  

aircooled said:

Oh one thing I meant to mention.  Someone asked about "pop-a-top" Russian tanks a while back.  I heard a good explanation for this (and a bit of interesting history).

If you look at Russian tanks (T-72 being the most popular, yes, that means it was first deployed in 1970!), they are comparatively small, especially the turrets.  A small tank of course has its advantages, and a small turret very much does since in many cases, that is all you can see.  The reason why they can make the turret so small (western turrets are much larger) is because they have three man crews (commander, driver, gunner) and only two in the turret.  Wester tanks have a third crew member in the turret, the loader.

 

Russia gets away with this by using an auto-loader for the main gun.  What is the downside of an auto-loader you ask?  Well, a smaller crew means any maintenance is harder but... also means that the ammunition for the main gun needs to be stored in the turret (I think you know where I am going here). Of course, having the ammo stored inside the turret means most any penetrating turret hit results in lighting off the main gun ammo.  Pressure builds up very quickly, pressure has to go somewhere... turret flies off!

As noted previously, many times the turret is all you see, and not a huge surprise here, many of the ATM's (e.g. Javelin) aim for the turret. Yes Demitri, that is ammo you are sitting on:

Interesting historical tidbit:  You may have heard about how dominant German tanks where on the western front in WWII.  You also may have heard how the US discovered that they could effectively deal with the German tanks if they had numbers.  You might think that they would rush them and surround them and hit them in the soft spots, but apparently one of the most effective tactics was a bit different.

Imagine being in a tank, specifically the (steel) turret, and a tank round (14lb shell traveling 1300 mph), hits the turret, but does not penetrate.  It would be a bit harsh to say the least.  Well, bounce a number of shells off of a turret, and you have what you might call "ringing the bell".  Most less than super hardened tank crews would want none of that and would tend to bail out.

 

 

Couple things you didn't mention with this that help make this a perfect storm of suckage for Russian tank crews.  
This issue has been known since Russia was in Afghanistan (and the US and its allies took notice)
Western ammunition is designed to not go kablooie when lit on fire.  It'll burn, but it takes heat and pressure to ignite the propellant within the case (this propellant is not gunpowder.  Vastly different burn characteristics.)

In reply to Mr_Asa :

American tanks also store the ammunition in a separate compartment with a blast door and a blowout plate, so if it gets hit, the boom goes outside.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

So, the Russian tank's blowout plate is the turret? Here is that pontoon bridge that the Russians where trying to cross when the Ukrainians blew everything up. 

I see that Erdogan is going to block Finland and Sweden joining NATO because those counties are terrorist supporters.

What does it take to kick Turkey out of NATO? 

Turkey's President Erdogan signals he'll block Finland and Sweden's NATO applications, claiming they're home to 'terrorist organizations'

VolvoHeretic said:

I see that Erdogan is going to block Finland and Sweden joining NATO because those counties are terrorist supporters.

What does it take to kick Turkey out of NATO? 

Turkey's President Erdogan signals he'll block Finland and Sweden's NATO applications, claiming they're home to 'terrorist organizations'

Weird. I don't think I know enough geopolitics to comment, but this seems like some real inside baseball is needed to understand properly. Likely not the type of stuff one can find on the internet, either.

VolvoHeretic said:

I see that Erdogan is going to block Finland and Sweden joining NATO because those counties are terrorist supporters.

What does it take to kick Turkey out of NATO? 

Turkey's President Erdogan signals he'll block Finland and Sweden's NATO applications, claiming they're home to 'terrorist organizations'

So much for Turkey's acquisition of F-35's...

on another T-72 thought--if your army contained a substantial number of T-72's, how anxious would you be to giving them to Ukraine in the hopes of NATO replacing them with Leopards, Challengers or Abrams...?

stroker said:

VolvoHeretic said:

I see that Erdogan is going to block Finland and Sweden joining NATO because those counties are terrorist supporters.

What does it take to kick Turkey out of NATO? 

Turkey's President Erdogan signals he'll block Finland and Sweden's NATO applications, claiming they're home to 'terrorist organizations'

So much for Turkey's acquisition of F-35's...

 

They weren't ever going to get F-35's after they bought the S400 anti-aircraft system from Russia.  So this is probably retaliation in some measure for that, and Erdogan is known to be kind of a dick so..  This may scupper the F-16 deal that was back on the table though.

EDIT: Or, this could be a way to get a backdoor deal on F-35's after all..  3d chess and all that..

VolvoHeretic said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

So, the Russian tank's blowout plate is the turret? Here is that pontoon bridge that the Russians where trying to cross when the Ukrainians blew everything up. 

I'm sorry, I really couldn't help it...

VolvoHeretic said:

I see that Erdogan is going to block Finland and Sweden joining NATO because those counties are terrorist supporters.

What does it take to kick Turkey out of NATO? 

Turkey's President Erdogan signals he'll block Finland and Sweden's NATO applications, claiming they're home to 'terrorist organizations'

The way I read this is that Erdogan doesn't want to burn all his bridges with Russia. Knowing that this conflict is finite, but that the extension of NATO is essentially open-ended, I think he recognizes that it is likely Turkey (moreso than most NATO states) will have to deal with Russia directly on a whole range of issues, and he wants to hold a few cards to play at that time. Providing weapons is one thing; changing the alliance dynamics to further isolate Russia indefinitely is another. Another possibility is that he wants to leverage a better deal out of the US (return to the F35 program, perhaps, or assistance in shoring up a badly declining economy?) and he's using this to do it.

Erdogan has been playing a delicate balancing act between NATO, the US, Russia, the Arab world, and Israel for years - it's not easy to maintain. He's also under domestic pressures due to the economic situation.

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

VolvoHeretic said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

So, the Russian tank's blowout plate is the turret? Here is that pontoon bridge that the Russians where trying to cross when the Ukrainians blew everything up. 

 

I'm sorry, I really couldn't help it...

LOL, but I actually mean it.

Russia' GDP is 180 billion.( US 22 Trillion)      Population 145 million.   About the same as Texas   Rampant AIDS, TB Alcoholism Drug addiction.   
afford to waste its military like this?  
 

On the subject of kicking Turkey out of NATO, I think that's going to have more downsides than up. If it were theoretically possible (there is no language in the treaty regarding forcible removal, only voluntary withdrawal), what then? Now a free agent, Turkey in all likelihood shifts its diplomatic focus east and south. With little influence over a post-NATO Turkey, the US likely loses its basing rights. If Turkey orients toward Russia in the medium-term, the Black Sea becomes far less friendly to the US and others; just imagine what Turkey-Russia cooperation would mean to Ukrainian commercial shipping.

In reply to 02Pilot :

70% inflation in Turkey. I think you are underplaying his domestic problems. 

02Pilot said:

On the subject of kicking Turkey out of NATO, I think that's going to have more downsides than up. If it were theoretically possible (there is no language in the treaty regarding forcible removal, only voluntary withdrawal), what then? Now a free agent, Turkey in all likelihood shifts its diplomatic focus east and south. With little influence over a post-NATO Turkey, the US likely loses its basing rights. If Turkey orients toward Russia in the medium-term, the Black Sea becomes far less friendly to the US and others; just imagine what Turkey-Russia cooperation would mean to Ukrainian commercial shipping.

In this case, kicking Turkey out of NATO actually fulfills one of Putin's aims (breakup or degredation of NATO), so that's definitely a non-starter.  I agree Erdogan is using the opposition to Sweden and Finland to joining NATO as a tool to leverage a better deal in the arms talks with the current administration.   Don't know if it will get him F-35's but maybe more F-16s or an upgrade to F-15EX?

There is a lot of scrap metal in Ukraine right now.  It is a shame that the Ukrainians can't drag that scrap somewhere and use it.