Thread: No more powder

Ahhhhh - not actually taking sides on the entire Russian/Ukrainian family squabble thing, bit off topic but here we go anyway...

I wasn't intending to comment on Russian aggression just the apparent stupidity behind the strategic and tactical factors by which they reached the decision to lauch a large-scale invasion at that time. It might not have started out as a decision to mount a large scale invasion, but equally after the initial failures Russia could have made a more sane decision to stick their tail between their legs and sod off home rather than doubling down and proceeding to shower the landscape in blood. Standard military doctrine states that Russia by keeping it a 'special military operation' has tied themselves to an eventual failure simply due to attrition and not being able to field sufficient manpower to maintain control over the battlefield (Russian law prevents large-scale military and industrial mobilisation without a declaration of war - and in any event the effects of the sanctions in limiting access to technology probably prevents much of a ramp-up in industrial capacity now anyway). It does have the effect of making light nuclear weapon use somewhat more likely too. In the same vein, Ukrainian mobilisation is probably too slow to reach a critical level of troops to efficiently and effectively force the Russian units back out of contested lands - leading to 'stalemate' which has been much bandied about and misused by the media. Ukrainian use of more modern tech weapons has only really levelled the playing field and not resulted in a shift in the balance - this is another factor tying Russia down further into a war of attrition.

Any way you look at it, this is more costly than any engagement since WW2 with a faster casualty rate in manpower, equipment and munitions than just about every action Russia has been involved in in the last 30 years combined. The stats don't lie, and against things going forwards - winter is coming. All that happens in that part of the world in winter in terms of warfare is people dying - bad juju's.

Talking further about the reasons behind the entire thing - Crimea houses the home port of the Black Sea fleet. Nuf said - without own-country control of that base tensions were always going to occur as soon as the host nation tried to extract more for the favour of housing the fleet. If you look at the bridge between Russia and Crimea - and particularly the speed at which the bridge was built after 2014 there was a large amount of the preplanning gone into that design prior to 2014 and the eventual annexation. Unfortunately the bridge is only good for light vehicles, so a land bridge between Crimea and Russia that is secure and not threatened was the next option and the whole seperatist construct is part of this setup. Now, going back to the likelihood of small nukes and creating a 'no go' area in this part of the world (ZNPP meltdown anyone?). Everything else we see is fluff basically from what I see, although the comment on industry and raw materials may have some value.

The scuttle about the Russian gas supplies and the Nordstream 2 pipeline are really non events, N2 never went online so never figures into the equation in terms of capacity losses. Ukraine was entitled to royalties from the pipelines crossing their territory, as in the case of every major pipeline and transmission service around the world and once the royalty amount became disputed the predictable response was a 'product tax'. Have a look at the numbers of pipelines exporting gas out of Russia, and how do you think the storage levels in the EU are still increasing with the N1 pipeline out of service? As always the comment that media reporting is not correct is entirely true, but also the other point is correct in that this has been on the slow boil since the breakup of the USSR. There's always something going on in the background when a major block fragments like the USSR did, and there are still potential flashpoints in the Kaliningrad area and Transnistria for a couple.

In terms of propellant and component shortages, with the consumption in the current conflict I cannot see anything returning back to 'normal' stock levels any time soon. Plants will literally be running 24/7 producing milspec product and shipping it out as fast as they can package it. Not only do we have the actual useage of munitions, but every nation in the area is trying to rebuild stockpiles of everything from small arms to medium calibre to heavy artillery. Unfortunately for civilian shooting sports, that is everything we use!