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On January 07 2023 01:56 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2023 01:32 plasmidghost wrote:
My big worry about Bakhmut as things get more dire for Ukraine there is that should it collapse and Wagner seize the salt and gypsum mines there, they can use that to finance a ton of their operations and I don't know what price Ukraine is willing to pay to prevent that How would they build up the required infrastructure again? They are easily within HIMARS range and at constant risk of Ukraine doing a push that brings normal artillery back in range. Only if they get a lot of ground outside the city as well would it ever become relevant.
Ah, that makes sense. I guess there's no real reason I can think of for the meat grinder to exist except for Wagner trying to prove its superiority. I keep trying to find a reason for its strategic importance but none of it really makes sense
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On January 07 2023 01:32 plasmidghost wrote:
My big worry about Bakhmut as things get more dire for Ukraine there is that should it collapse and Wagner seize the salt and gypsum mines there, they can use that to finance a ton of their operations and I don't know what price Ukraine is willing to pay to prevent that
And how do you envision Wagner Group operating the mines and transporting the goods? It's not StarCraft where you can happily mine resources when your base is under attack. Those mines will not be in operation until the war ends, or at least until frontline moves like 100km away from them.
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Wouldn't Germany simply veto any such action...
Poland has more than 240 Leopard tanks, enough for two tank brigades, and plans to eventually unload all of them, said Slawomir Debski, director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, a Warsaw think tank close to the Polish government. The pace at which it could give those to Ukraine depends on how quickly Poland receives replacement tanks it has ordered from manufacturers in South Korea and the U.S., he said. Berlin would also need to approve.
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Nice to see the US sending Bradlys but a bit surprising. It shares the same major flaw that Abrams tanks and F16 fighter jets have that I thought would stop all transfers. The flaw of course being that there is a shit ton of them in storage waiting to be decommissioned. So sending them to Ukraine means that you don't have to buy them of the military industrial complex. In fact you don't even have to buy replacements as they are being phased out. At most you have to pay a little money to take out stored units to replace the ones you send.
It's so bad that American taxpayers might even save money if you send enough of them (transfer and training costs being relatively front loaded but the cost of decommissioning is per unit). Even worse the MIC doesn't get the money from disassembling them.
Guessing some lobbyists are working overtime on this one. With ~6500 Bradlys and thousands of tanks, hundreds of F16 and ~3+ million rounds of artillery cluster munitions slated for retirement this could be real bad for the bottom line if people start to realise it might actually make economic sense to just dump it on Ukraine.
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On January 07 2023 02:11 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2023 01:32 plasmidghost wrote:
My big worry about Bakhmut as things get more dire for Ukraine there is that should it collapse and Wagner seize the salt and gypsum mines there, they can use that to finance a ton of their operations and I don't know what price Ukraine is willing to pay to prevent that And how do you envision Wagner Group operating the mines and transporting the goods? It's not StarCraft where you can happily mine resources when your base is under attack. Those mines will not be in operation until the war ends, or at least until frontline moves like 100km away from them.
Yeah, that won't happen at all unless an absolute nightmare scenario happens and I don't see how it does
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On January 07 2023 02:46 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
Nice to see the US sending Bradlys but a bit surprising. It shares the same major flaw that Abrams tanks and F16 fighter jets have that I thought would stop all transfers. The flaw of course being that there is a shit ton of them in storage waiting to be decommissioned. So sending them to Ukraine means that you don't have to buy them of the military industrial complex. In fact you don't even have to buy replacements as they are being phased out. At most you have to pay a little money to take out stored units to replace the ones you send.
It's so bad that American taxpayers might even save money if you send enough of them (transfer and training costs being relatively front loaded but the cost of decommissioning is per unit). Even worse the MIC doesn't get the money from disassembling them.
Guessing some lobbyists are working overtime on this one. With ~6500 Bradlys and thousands of tanks, hundreds of F16 and ~3+ million rounds of artillery cluster munitions slated for retirement this could be real bad for the bottom line if people start to realise it might actually make economic sense to just dump it on Ukraine.
I mean, something has to fill the stockpile gap left behind. Ukraine has been a materiel yard sale the entire time.
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On January 07 2023 01:32 plasmidghost wrote:
My big worry about Bakhmut as things get more dire for Ukraine there is that should it collapse and Wagner seize the salt and gypsum mines there, they can use that to finance a ton of their operations and I don't know what price Ukraine is willing to pay to prevent that
Large underground salt mines are making more money from the amusement rides for tourists than actual salt this century. A few days of military equipment destroyed in Bakhmut probably eclipse salt sales for an entire year.
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On January 07 2023 02:44 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Wouldn't Germany simply veto any such action... https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1611395418004267008Show nested quote +Poland has more than 240 Leopard tanks, enough for two tank brigades, and plans to eventually unload all of them, said Slawomir Debski, director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, a Warsaw think tank close to the Polish government. The pace at which it could give those to Ukraine depends on how quickly Poland receives replacement tanks it has ordered from manufacturers in South Korea and the U.S., he said. Berlin would also need to approve.
I'd wait for confirmation from someone higher in the government than Dębski but this looks huge. Leopards aren't cheap and Poland isn't exactly in position to print money to get replacements quickly.
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On January 07 2023 03:11 Sent. wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2023 02:44 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Wouldn't Germany simply veto any such action... https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1611395418004267008Poland has more than 240 Leopard tanks, enough for two tank brigades, and plans to eventually unload all of them, said Slawomir Debski, director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, a Warsaw think tank close to the Polish government. The pace at which it could give those to Ukraine depends on how quickly Poland receives replacement tanks it has ordered from manufacturers in South Korea and the U.S., he said. Berlin would also need to approve. I'd wait for confirmation from someone higher in the government than Dębski but this looks huge. Leopards aren't cheap and Poland isn't exactly in position to print money to get replacements quickly.
On that note, Finland has offered their Leopards if other Euro countries do as well so that could lessen the burden on Poland
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Zurich15363 Posts
Scholz' list of excuses running out quickly! Great to hear from Finnland and Poland!
Very unlikely Germany would "veto" that if it comes as a request for a joint European action.
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United States43673 Posts
On January 07 2023 01:32 plasmidghost wrote:
My big worry about Bakhmut as things get more dire for Ukraine there is that should it collapse and Wagner seize the salt and gypsum mines there, they can use that to finance a ton of their operations and I don't know what price Ukraine is willing to pay to prevent that
Wars cost hundreds of billions. It could be a platinum mine and it would still be irrelevant to the cost of taking it.
This isn’t a strategy game, you don’t get huge immediate bonuses for holding resource tiles. It takes an entire productive nation and years to pay for a war. Wars aren’t fun, if strategy games were realistic everyone would immediately conclude that trying to take resource tiles was far more costly than it was worth and that the optimal strategy for the game was peace.
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On January 07 2023 03:09 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2023 02:46 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
Nice to see the US sending Bradlys but a bit surprising. It shares the same major flaw that Abrams tanks and F16 fighter jets have that I thought would stop all transfers. The flaw of course being that there is a shit ton of them in storage waiting to be decommissioned. So sending them to Ukraine means that you don't have to buy them of the military industrial complex. In fact you don't even have to buy replacements as they are being phased out. At most you have to pay a little money to take out stored units to replace the ones you send.
It's so bad that American taxpayers might even save money if you send enough of them (transfer and training costs being relatively front loaded but the cost of decommissioning is per unit). Even worse the MIC doesn't get the money from disassembling them.
Guessing some lobbyists are working overtime on this one. With ~6500 Bradlys and thousands of tanks, hundreds of F16 and ~3+ million rounds of artillery cluster munitions slated for retirement this could be real bad for the bottom line if people start to realise it might actually make economic sense to just dump it on Ukraine. I mean, something has to fill the stockpile gap left behind. Ukraine has been a materiel yard sale the entire time.
F16's you have flight frames in storage with just a few years left. Don't think Ukraine cares that much if the plane only have 5 years of operational life left but replacements are already ordered, paid for and in many cases already in service (which is why the planes are in storage).
Bradlys are supposed to be retired as soon as a replacement is found and are long overdue for this. With 2000 in storage and 4800 active giving even 1000 of them won't affect readiness much. Also some units are switching to Strykers which could probably fill most of that gap.
Abrams are being overproduced each year just to keep the factories running. The army actually gets more of them than they want. Just giving the 200 that the marine corps just decided to phase out (since they don't want MBT's anymore). Litterally the thing the US army could probably spare the most.
Cluster munitions. Decided to be removed by Obama, halted by Trump (more or less) but the order was not reversed. Very expensive to decommission explosive ordnance in accordance with regulations, super cheap to just ship it.
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On January 07 2023 03:42 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2023 03:09 Gahlo wrote:On January 07 2023 02:46 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
Nice to see the US sending Bradlys but a bit surprising. It shares the same major flaw that Abrams tanks and F16 fighter jets have that I thought would stop all transfers. The flaw of course being that there is a shit ton of them in storage waiting to be decommissioned. So sending them to Ukraine means that you don't have to buy them of the military industrial complex. In fact you don't even have to buy replacements as they are being phased out. At most you have to pay a little money to take out stored units to replace the ones you send.
It's so bad that American taxpayers might even save money if you send enough of them (transfer and training costs being relatively front loaded but the cost of decommissioning is per unit). Even worse the MIC doesn't get the money from disassembling them.
Guessing some lobbyists are working overtime on this one. With ~6500 Bradlys and thousands of tanks, hundreds of F16 and ~3+ million rounds of artillery cluster munitions slated for retirement this could be real bad for the bottom line if people start to realise it might actually make economic sense to just dump it on Ukraine. I mean, something has to fill the stockpile gap left behind. Ukraine has been a materiel yard sale the entire time. F16's you have flight frames in storage with just a few years left. Don't think Ukraine cares that much if the plane only have 5 years of operational life left but replacements are already ordered, paid for and in many cases already in service (which is why the planes are in storage). Bradlys are supposed to be retired as soon as a replacement is found and are long overdue for this. With 2000 in storage and 4800 active giving even 1000 of them won't affect readiness much. Also some units are switching to Strykers which could probably fill most of that gap. Abrams are being overproduced each year just to keep the factories running. The army actually gets more of them than they want. Just giving the 200 that the marine corps just decided to phase out (since they don't want MBT's anymore). Litterally the thing the US army could probably spare the most. Cluster munitions. Decided to be removed by Obama, halted by Trump (more or less) but the order was not reversed. Very expensive to decommission explosive ordnance in accordance with regulations, super cheap to just ship it.
Abrams are a bad idea just because they use twice as much fuel as any other MBT for small performance benefits, and drastically more at idle. Fine if you are the logistical behemoth that is USA, but otherwise horrible on a pretty static battlefield.
Bradleys are a good send.
I'm adamantly against using cluster munitions when the guided stuff is available.
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Cluster munitions are bad and you shouldn't use them if you value the space you use them on. HIMARS has a cluster munition that is just a collection of metal balls that come out of the sky with the velocity of a missle boost.
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On January 07 2023 04:08 Sermokala wrote:
Cluster munitions are bad and you shouldn't use them if you value the space you use them on. HIMARS has a cluster munition that is just a collection of metal balls that come out of the sky with the velocity of a missle boost.
Oh yeah, that's the one rocket that has like 180k tungsten balls in it, right? I've seen some before and after those get deployed and of all the horrors of modern-day war I've seen, that's gotta be one of the worse ones
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Green Party wants "Leopard": Hofreiter says German tank pledge does not go far enough
Following the decision by Germany and the United States to supply infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, Green Party European politician Anton Hofreiter has also called for the delivery of main battle tanks. "I would like us, as the main manufacturing country of 'Leopard 2', to start a European initiative for the delivery of 'Leopard 2' and to look together with Europe at what all we can deliver to Ukraine so that they can liberate the occupied territories," Hofreiter said on ARD television.
Hofreiter called the decision to supply several dozen examples of the "Marder" infantry fighting vehicle "very, very late." "If these tanks had been delivered earlier, then fewer Ukrainian soldiers would have died. That has to be said quite clearly," the Green politician said. At the very least, training of Ukrainian soldiers on the "Leopard 2" should begin "immediately."
https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Hofreiter-geht-deutsche-Panzer-Zusage-nicht-weit-genug-article23826317.html
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The timeframe on this matches up with the rumored spring offensive. Not sure how many Ukrainian soldiers they'll be able to train at once (thinking not just on these but on all new equipment like tanks, the Patriot battery, etc.), but having a good deal of IFVs and other new equipment in the offensive will do a ton of good
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On January 07 2023 03:28 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2023 01:32 plasmidghost wrote:
My big worry about Bakhmut as things get more dire for Ukraine there is that should it collapse and Wagner seize the salt and gypsum mines there, they can use that to finance a ton of their operations and I don't know what price Ukraine is willing to pay to prevent that Wars cost hundreds of billions. It could be a platinum mine and it would still be irrelevant to the cost of taking it. This isn’t a strategy game, you don’t get huge immediate bonuses for holding resource tiles. It takes an entire productive nation and years to pay for a war. Wars aren’t fun, if strategy games were realistic everyone would immediately conclude that trying to take resource tiles was far more costly than it was worth and that the optimal strategy for the game was peace.
Nope, because Zerg gonna Zerg. So you gotta stop the Zerg from zerging, and then there's the chance you get protossed. So yeah, you gotta grab that Vespene geyser!
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On January 07 2023 03:11 Sent. wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2023 02:44 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Wouldn't Germany simply veto any such action... https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1611395418004267008Poland has more than 240 Leopard tanks, enough for two tank brigades, and plans to eventually unload all of them, said Slawomir Debski, director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, a Warsaw think tank close to the Polish government. The pace at which it could give those to Ukraine depends on how quickly Poland receives replacement tanks it has ordered from manufacturers in South Korea and the U.S., he said. Berlin would also need to approve. I'd wait for confirmation from someone higher in the government than Dębski but this looks huge. Leopards aren't cheap and Poland isn't exactly in position to print money to get replacements quickly.
They are likely thinking only about a symbolic 20 of A4 or thereabout.
Officially not even PT-91 have been provided so it's much more a diplomatic move than a military one.
It's pretty important to break that tank taboo.
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So what is stopping Poland, and the Czechs from simply ignoring Germany if they veto any Tank transfer? And decide to give them to Ukraine, or better yet loan them loan them out, Poland already has defense contracts with S. Korea and the US etc.
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EPT
