Mark wrote: ↑20 Nov 2024, 12:27
The likely winner in any carve-up would be China.
The prospect of this happening would presumably prompt the US to cross the Bering Straight and take a significant chunk of territory in the north-east.
Agree UE. Plus, they might try and seize the oil fields in the north of Russia which will complement there fracking operations. So much for green energy
Forever_Winter wrote: ↑20 Nov 2024, 19:07
Labour cutting defence spending. Lord help us.....
Hang on, the big cuts in defence spending were the Tories! Defence spending over the next five years will be the highest in a generation.
Defence had a 13.5% cut from 2010-15 under Osborne, smaller army, navy, scraping Nimrod etc https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34790102
Taking that forward to 2017 saw the cuts reach -14.6% from Labour's outgoing 2009-10 levels.
It's since risen a little reaching 2.33% by 2020. It's Labour that has committed to 2.5% of GDP.
Over the last generation or so, it's the Tories that have been most responsible for defence cuts, and this Labour government's that committed to taking spending to the highest level since the Cold War.
clv101 wrote: ↑20 Nov 2024, 11:21
I've long expected a collapse of the Ukrainian military, and still do.
Then a ceasefire is in everyone's interests as i see it. Ukraine gets to keep their country and the Russians don't lose any more face over their military capabilities.
Persistence of habitat, is the fundamental basis of persistence of a species.
Russia has launched an ICBM at Ukraine. I guess this counts as escalation, but only in a symbolic way. Russia does not need ICBMs to strike Ukraine, so this is presumably intended as a message to a wider audience, including the UK. NATO is unlikely to be intimidated.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
invalid wrote: ↑21 Nov 2024, 10:38
There's a good video of this. It's quite scary.
You get your kicks in a very strange way....
Western missiles will be bigger/better than than any possessed by Russia, so this seems an odd tactic....
What goes one-way, can always be returned the other way with interest applied....
I guess Russia is now getting desperate as they've only advanced a few miles after fighting for over 1,000 days and taking massive losses...
UndercoverElephant wrote: ↑21 Nov 2024, 09:17NATO is unlikely to be intimidated.
NATO is, and remains extremely intimidated by Russia! Hence the softly softly, just enough support of the last couple of years. If we weren't intimidated we could have done a 'Desert Storm' on Russian forces in Ukraine and ended the whole thing in the first fortnight. That option is still available - except for our continued intimidation.
UndercoverElephant wrote: ↑21 Nov 2024, 09:17
Russia has launched an ICBM at Ukraine. I guess this counts as escalation, but only in a symbolic way. Russia does not need ICBMs to strike Ukraine, so this is presumably intended as a message to a wider audience, including the UK. NATO is unlikely to be intimidated.
The video showed on the BBC (posted by the Russian MoD apparently) appears to a short range ballistic missile probably with a similar range to the Us-supplied weapons.
It's clearly something that hasn't been used before. The label ICBM is rather provocative, but it does seem to be a ballistic missile with multiple *fast* reentry vehicles.
A 'live' test of the rocket, and MREV targeting systems. The US did the same on 5 Nov, launching a Minute Man III ICBM. The difference here is that it landed in a Ukrainian city, rather than a firing range. Kinda makes sense when you are actually fighting a war!
This video has been circulating. I found it interesting as I'd always assumed MERVs would be way more spread out than this, 10s of km etc. But these all seem to have landed in a similar area.https://x.com/Will_Killmore/status/1859579969506021645
clv101 wrote: ↑21 Nov 2024, 13:08
It's clearly something that hasn't been used before. The label ICBM is rather provocative, but it does seem to be a ballistic missile with multiple *fast* reentry vehicles.
A 'live' test of the rocket, and MREV targeting systems. The US did the same on 5 Nov, launching a Minute Man III ICBM. The difference here is that it landed in a Ukrainian city, rather than a firing range. Kinda makes sense when you are actually fighting a war!
This video has been circulating. I found it interesting as I'd always assumed MERVs would be way more spread out than this, 10s of km etc. But these all seem to have landed in a similar area.https://x.com/Will_Killmore/status/1859579969506021645
That could have been multiple missiles launched, we just don't know. Also, the terminal velocity seems quite slow. Anything travelling at hypersonic speed would be almost invisible on impact. Even the V2s launched during WW2 would have been quicker than this (I think their terminal velocity was over 1700mph). If you look at previous hypersonic missile attacks by Russia you don't even see them hit; you just hear the bang.....
I saw a video purporting to be an attack and the warheads seemed to have very little explosive power but were travelling fast - supposing the video was not sped up. The angle of hit seems very high compared with videos of American test so the missile was probably operating a much less than its maximum range. The German V2 warheads had issues with fusing as they were travelling so fast they had buried themselves deep in the ground before the contact fuse had time to go off. Perhaps the Russians had the same issues.
Ukraine said they hit a centre for disabled people and the Russian press conference lady in somewhat farcical circumstances was phoned up mid press conference and told by a clearly audible male voice on the phone not to talk about the attack on the missile facility in Dnipro. Russians like these farcical press conferences - I recall the noisy lady at the Kursk press conference in 2001, early in Putin's rule, being silenced by the doctors with the huge syringe.
At least it is one less ICBM that can target the West.
Putin does seem to be on a wholescale mass destruction of Ukraine and is not interested in taking anything of value, including the people. I hope he wastes all the Russian oil wealth that could have been used to build the country and continues to lose his men at the rate of 1000 per day.
If watching MIRV re-entries gets you going there is a video of an America test somewhere and they do go very fast these days. Sometime in the 1970s the UK upgraded Polaris warheads to something called Chevaline as there was a worry that the existing MIRVs reentered too slowly (subsonic) and could be shot down by Russian air defences. The Callaghan government took a lot of stick doing this upgrade.
The media coverage of the war has surged in the last week with the use of missiles on both sides, which has the feeling of a war of words in preparation for the negotiations as both sides are reaching the point where the costs of the conflict exceed the possible future benefits. The big deal Putin has made of using a new ballistic missile is overblown, the huge cost and limited supply of the missile vastly exceeds it's military value in Ukraine. There are rumours that the storm Shadow strike was on the headquarters of the North Korean forces.
There is a lot of chatter that Trump will do a u turn and escalate support for Ukraine to accelerate a military victory over Putin, but this is probably whistling in the wind.
So much death and destruction to satisfy the egos of a few old men.
Ralphw2 wrote: ↑23 Nov 2024, 07:20
There is a lot of chatter that Trump will do a u turn and escalate support for Ukraine to accelerate a military victory over Putin, but this is probably whistling in the wind.
That sounds a bit unlikely, but IF true would in my view be good news.
"Installers and owners of emergency diesels must assume that they will have to run for a week or more"
Ralphw2 wrote: ↑23 Nov 2024, 07:20
There is a lot of chatter that Trump will do a u turn and escalate support for Ukraine to accelerate a military victory over Putin, but this is probably whistling in the wind.
Some of that chatter came from me in this thread, and that was not in response to other chatter but to my own intuition. Trump isn't rational. I think he really believes that he can end the war in 24 hours, and my guess is that this is tied up with the fact that the US is so much more powerful than Russia. In Trump's mind, he can leverage US power to force Putin to accept some sort of deal -- all it needs is Big Man Trump to wade in and say "Time's up, folks! Time to do a deal." This is highly unlikely to work, and that means everything spins on Trump's reaction to not getting what he wants. And I think there is a high probability that the reaction will be something along the lines of "Time to teach Putin a lesson about American power. Nobody messes with Big Man Trump."
If this analysis is even half true then this is the most dangerous scenario since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
Ralphw2 wrote: ↑23 Nov 2024, 07:20
There is a lot of chatter that Trump will do a u turn and escalate support for Ukraine to accelerate a military victory over Putin, but this is probably whistling in the wind.
Some of that chatter came from me in this thread, and that was not in response to other chatter but to my own intuition. Trump isn't rational. I think he really believes that he can end the war in 24 hours, and my guess is that this is tied up with the fact that the US is so much more powerful than Russia. In Trump's mind, he can leverage US power to force Putin to accept some sort of deal -- all it needs is Big Man Trump to wade in and say "Time's up, folks! Time to do a deal." This is highly unlikely to work, and that means everything spins on Trump's reaction to not getting what he wants. And I think there is a high probability that the reaction will be something along the lines of "Time to teach Putin a lesson about American power. Nobody messes with Big Man Trump."
If this analysis is even half true then this is the most dangerous scenario since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Putin is basically on a one man suicide mission. He cannot back down otherwise Russia will collapse. I think he may consider the use of nukes because he has no regard for his population. I'm in Estonia, and I've spoken to a few Russians here. I asked them ' do you believe this crap ' and they said 'no but it's better than falling out of a window '
