Where Do Things End With Vlad? (h/t romad1)

[gehringer_2]

7 minutes ago, romad1 said:

The nuances are in the article Xi to see before he contemplates this coming invasion of Taiwan. 

I think it was in a piece by the Asia CSIS guy where there was a good presentation of the issues for Xi with Taiwan - the big diff is that it's much harder to invade over water, but it will also be much harder to resupply Taiwan with no friendly land borders. Bottom line, Taiwan's needs to stockpile a lot of ordinance and they should be doing it now.

Edited March 6, 2022 by gehringer_2

[romad1]

16 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I think it was in a piece by the Asia CSIS guy where there was a good presentation of the issues for Xi with Taiwan - the big diff is that it's much harder to invade over water, but it will also be much harder to resupply Taiwan with no friendly land borders. Bottom line, Taiwan's needs to stockpile a lot of ordinance and they should be doing it now.

The silver bullet would be to stockpile Japanese, Australian and American ground forces in token to non-token numbers.

[romad1]

THIS IS PATHETIC

Also, why would they need to have passenger vehicles?  To remove people.  Why would you need to remove people?  Where would you put people?  In camps?  In camps where you could concentrate all the non-compliant types?  In concentration camps?

[romad1]

 

well, the Ukrainians are having a bit of dark humor with this

 

[romad1]

I wonder if other gen 4 air forces operating MIG and Sukhoi aircraft (e.g., India) would be convinced to sell them to Ukraine if Uncle Sugar and its Auntie EU would pay them enough. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by romad1

[1984Echoes]

1 hour ago, romad1 said:

 

We are going to backfill Poland with F-22's I believe.

That will replace, and allow the transfer, of those MIG's.

But the backfill process may take some time which is what the current hold-up is on the MIG's... can't leave Poland bereft of planes. Non-starter.

[1984Echoes]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

I was thinking about this a few days ago, wondering whether we will see the dead bodies, and I’m guessing we won’t, because sensitivities.

Remember Vietnam? Each night, the network news would show video of soldiers wounded in the field, or coffins of soldiers coming home. It was instrumental in shifting American sentiment against the war. The then-current presidential administration and its military complex did not like that. So, in the wars after that, starting with Lebanon and Grenada and on through Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and all the post-9/11 wars, the military embedded the media with the troops to get them on the same sympathetic side as the soldiers, and there was exactly zero footage of facts on the ground like dead soldiers blown up by IEDs made available for the media to air. This worked to prevent Americans from seeing as they did with Nam just how dirty and deadly war actually is. It didn’t necessarily keep all Americans invested in pursuing those wars, because other reasons, but grim footage of death on a nightly basis was not a factor in people’s opposition to, for instance, America’s Middle East wars.

I think it would be beyond shocking for the media to foist close-up images of dead people at all, let alone children, on any basis, let alone nightly. There are probably websites out there that will feature that kind of imagery, but people would have to seek that out, and I don’t think anyone save for a few NGO professionals and perhaps some ghoulish people would do so. So unless there is a dramatic shift in the perspective of presenting raw war footage in the media, I think the closest we will get to anything like that is grainy or blurry or heavily edited images of unidentifiable adult people falling down from a distant camera angle, and maybe not even that.

But that would be us, the common people.

Those images may exist, but not for us in the public. If they, however, make their way to behind closed doors United Nations, and/or NATO, EU, etc.... There is still the possibility of a sea change in thinking.

And yes... that's what I was thinking exactly, the Vietnam war images. Or African famine images. No one can be the same after seeing those. Attitudes change, and change fast, after that... It's emotional.

[1984Echoes]

1 hour ago, Tigerbomb13 said:

Some more war crimes in plain sight 

Adolph Putin, murderer of women and children. 21st century Ukrainian Genocide.

[romad1]

5 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

We are going to backfill Poland with F-22's I believe.

That will replace, and allow the transfer, of those MIG's.

But the backfill process may take some time which is what the current hold-up is on the MIG's... can't leave Poland bereft of planes. Non-starter.

We can't backfill F-22s.  That production line has been shut down.  The modern F-16 equivalent is the F-35. 

Now, the hang up for Poland is that the Migs and Sukhois don't require nice perfectly tended airfields because Russian doctrine was always designed around use of airfields tended to by a workforce inured to work.  So, the Migs/Sukhois are less susceptible to FOD (foreign objects debris) than our very Ferrari-like American and Euro jets. 

It was a solution to a technical problem somewhat like the Americans design a pen cable of writing in zero G and the Russians use pencils.   In this case the technical problem was that Russians (and TBF conscripts in general) are lazy and don't want to sweep airfields for stones and other junk. 

[1984Echoes]

1 hour ago, romad1 said:

The central idea is contained in the tweet.  The nuances are in the article

as a practitioner of air power I would LOVE to see F-35s and F-22s proving themselves on a battlefield for Xi to see before he contemplates this coming invasion of Taiwan.  However, as a person who enjoys having a non-nuclear suntan and low levels of radioactive material in my atmosphere, lets be careful.

Also, Ukraine can kick Putin's ass with aid + intel + lend lease equipment.

And MIG's.

Lots of MIG's.

[Tigerbomb13]

Long thread, and I can’t confirm it’s all true, but it makes sense with all the issues the Russian military has been having. 

[1984Echoes]

23 minutes ago, romad1 said:

I wonder if other gen 4 air forces operating MIG and Sukhoi aircraft (e.g., India) would be convinced to sell them to Ukraine if Uncle Sugar and its Auntie EU would pay them enough. 

I would definitely be interested in India divesting and swinging over to American equipment but... they are not exactly a reliable partner.

But Indian divestiture is hugely appealing.

And hugely beneficial to the Ukrainians war effort.

[1984Echoes]

15 minutes ago, romad1 said:

We can't backfill F-22s.  That production line has been shut down....

Right... but we can still send them F-22's if we backfill our OWN forces with additional F-35's...

It's getting a bit complicated (for all party's concerned) to be properly equipped but... extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures.

In fact, if I were in Congress right now I'd be running up a military build-up budget proposal that increases our military expenditures for this year at least, heavy equipment (F-35's, I know it takes years, but get them in the budget right now to get the ball rolling for all the downhill impact that is currently needed) and heavy ammunitions (Stingers and Javelins) as a way to funnel weaponry into the US, some of it through to NATO, and particularly "necessaries" all the way through to Ukraine. Even if it's a hodge-podge (MIG's) that ends up in Ukrainian hands. They want the MIG's anyways.

I'd really love to be able to send them about 30 Warthogs. That would be a game-changer IMO.

[1984Echoes]

He is a really good article on the politics surrounding the swift (no pun intended) implementation of sanctions against Putin/ his inner circle/ Russia, and Zelensky's impact/ inspiration for such...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/west-marshaled-stunning-show-unity-182418574.html

[Tigerbomb13]

Tim’s threads have been a great follow. 

[1984Echoes]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

From the Department of Projection Junction, That’s Your Function:

Paper tiger accuses NATO of paper tigerism, and also, newsflash: there was vote fraud.

 

I'm going to make an honest request of everyone here...

Can we EXCLUDE all things TFG from now on?

I don't want to see him, hear him, his name or his thoughts, anywhere...

But especially in this thread. I think it is just, at this point in time, inappropriate.

Just my 2 cents, and humble request.

[romad1]

20 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

Right... but we can still send them F-22's if we backfill our OWN forces with additional F-35's...

It's getting a bit complicated (for all party's concerned) to be properly equipped but... extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures.

In fact, if I were in Congress right now I'd be running up a military build-up budget proposal that increases our military expenditures for this year at least, heavy equipment (F-35's, I know it takes years, but get them in the budget right now to get the ball rolling for all the downhill impact that is currently needed) and heavy ammunitions (Stingers and Javelins) as a way to funnel weaponry into the US, some of it through to NATO, and particularly "necessaries" all the way through to Ukraine. Even if it's a hodge-podge (MIG's) that ends up in Ukrainian hands. They want the MIG's anyways.

I'd really love to be able to send them about 30 Warthogs. That would be a game-changer IMO.

So, in terms of capability.  F-22s which stopped being produced in when...2010 or so...are still better than ANYTHING else out there.   We aren't giving anyone those.  F-35s are produced in a bunch of variants.  I think they even have a variant for "austere" airfields.

[1984Echoes]

1 hour ago, romad1 said:

The central idea is contained in the tweet.  The nuances are in the article

as a practitioner of air power I would LOVE to see F-35s and F-22s proving themselves on a battlefield for Xi to see before he contemplates this coming invasion of Taiwan.  However, as a person who enjoys having a non-nuclear suntan and low levels of radioactive material in my atmosphere, lets be careful.

Also, Ukraine can kick Putin's ass with aid + intel + lend lease equipment.

Bingo!

BINGO BINGO BINGO BINGO BINGO!!!

[1984Echoes]

1 minute ago, romad1 said:

So, in terms of capability.  F-22s which stopped being produced in when...2010 or so...are still better than ANYTHING else out there.   We aren't giving anyone those.  F-35s are produced in a bunch of variants.  I think they even have a variant for "austere" airfields.

Yeah I was wrong...

It was F-16's we were looking to backfill in Poland, not F-22's (I'm so confused these days!!!)

In fact, it stated as such in that article that you posted that I just quoted ("Bingo!").

[1984Echoes]

47 minutes ago, Tigerbomb13 said:

Long thread, and I can’t confirm it’s all true, but it makes sense with all the issues the Russian military has been having. 

This is another terrific thread to read.

Stunning in fact, to hear an FSB voice out of Russia.

And the translation/ words appear to match everything we know or believe we know on the ground, and behind the curtain.

EPIC failure by Putin. Or at least the sooner we can get to a confirmation of this epic failure (Russian forces withdraw back to their pre-2022 lines), the better.

[CMRivdogs]

 

[1984Echoes]

Just now, CMRivdogs said:

 

This is not good news at all.

They are looking to create a fabrication/ excuse to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine.

[CMRivdogs]

There's more....

 

[gehringer_2]

24 minutes ago, romad1 said:

So, in terms of capability.  F-22s which stopped being produced in when...2010 or so...are still better than ANYTHING else out there.   We aren't giving anyone those.  F-35s are produced in a bunch of variants.  I think they even have a variant for "austere" airfields.

right - F-35B is STOL, doesn't much need an airfield at all, but supposedly it's not as capable as the non-STOL variants.

Edited March 6, 2022 by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, romad1 said:

I wonder if other gen 4 air forces operating MIG and Sukhoi aircraft (e.g., India) would be convinced to sell them to Ukraine if Uncle Sugar and its Auntie EU would pay them enough. 

India not in a particularly happy place. They have no emotional, ideological or fraternal ties to Russia, but as part of their 'non-aligned' status they have traditionally refused to hitch themselves to the US as arms supplier, thus they are dependent on Russia for military supplies. OTOH, their troops and Russian equip failed miserably in a recent border dust-up with the Chinese and they can't be happy seeing Russian equipment fail in Ukraine even if they have no sympathy with what the Russians are doing with it.  There might be some opportunity to peel them away the Russians, but the Indian commitment to the 'non-aligned' status runs pretty deep.