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Eastern Europe News

"Modern warfare is expensive as fuck" is already a common wisdom so I might just be stating the obvious here, but here's an interesting story to put into perspective on the cost and scale of peer warfare


General Mark Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that the West has delivered 60,000 antitank weapons and 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons to Kyiv. The Pentagon is now laying plans to rush additional artillery, coastal defense drones and other materiel to Ukraine. The White House on Wednesday announced a new $800 million package including helicopters and armored personnel carriers.

~~~~~

Pentagon officials say that Kyiv is blowing through a week's worth of deliveries of antitank munitions every day. It is also running short of usable aircraft as Russian airstrikes and combat losses take their toll. Ammunition has become scarce in Mariupol and other areas.

I also have heard claims that the US have given Ukraine one third of its Javelin stockpile. I tracked down the source of the claim and it appear to came from a think thank


The United States has supplied Ukraine with thousands of Javelins, the anti-tank missiles that have become the iconic weapon of the war, but the U.S. inventory is dwindling. The United States has probably given about one-third of its stock to Ukraine. Thus, the United States is approaching the point where it must reduce transfers to maintain sufficient stockpiles for its own war plans. Production of new missiles is slow, and it will take years to replenish stocks.

Drawing from the experience of this war, would we see major powers greatly expanding their munition stockpile in the future? In this war we are already seeing the Russians burning through the stock in like, what, first week of the war? And on the other side Ukraine as evident by all the videos and photos we have seen, have also been using equally large amount of munitions, although Ukraine's pocket is much deeper as they have western countries on their side filling their pocket.
 
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Somehow, I doubt War Thunder will nerf Soviet/Russian tanks accordingly.

Well, if you want realistic computer games, the nerfing would have to be a bit random.
Say a Russian tank has officially 2000 hitpoints and an armor value of 10... code could be added to make some of them less.
But you would not know until you attacked it.

Fun question for you though... when was the French military last in a serious tank vs tank battle?
 
"Modern warfare is expensive as fuck" is already a common wisdom so I might just be stating the obvious here, but here's an interesting story to put into perspective on the cost and scale of peer warfare
I mean unless the Western powers decide to join in, their stockpiles are just sitting gathering dust anyway so better to send them off into a conflict that if won by Ukraine, could reduce the need for them for a very long while.
 
Well, if you want realistic computer games, the nerfing would have to be a bit random.
Say a Russian tank has officially 2000 hitpoints and an armor value of 10... code could be added to make some of them less.
But you would not know until you attacked it.

Fun question for you though... when was the French military last in a serious tank vs tank battle?
How long, you mean? The Cold War plan was to slow down the part of the Soviet attack headed to the Rhine for one week with ambush and controlled retreat, to give time for the REFORGER elements to arrive and lessen the pressure. We never intended to do a tank vs tank battle, but rather to use a looooooot of anti-tank systems, thus our many ATGM, AT mine dispensers and a doctrine that exchanged West German territory for as much time as possible.

Now, we wouldn't go for a tank vs tank battle either, because that's for scrubs. We use a little something called combined arms, like pretty much everyone in a decent military.

As for the other posts about ammunition reserves, as Damar said, the more Russia is gutted, the less ammo reserves are needed in the short term: it's a good way to expend them since it reduces the threat they're themselves supposed to counter
 
"Modern warfare is expensive as fuck" is already a common wisdom so I might just be stating the obvious here, but here's an interesting story to put into perspective on the cost and scale of peer warfare




I also have heard claims that the US have given Ukraine one third of its Javelin stockpile. I tracked down the source of the claim and it appear to came from a think thank




Drawing from the experience of this war, would we see major powers greatly expanding their munition stockpile in the future? In this war we are already seeing the Russians burning through the stock in like, what, first week of the war? And on the other side Ukraine as evident by all the videos and photos we have seen, have also been using equally large amount of munitions, although Ukraine's pocket is much deeper as they have western countries on their side filling their pocket.
First, It's an op-ed, those don't have to be in touch with reality. Second, in case of the US and bigger NATO members, they don't rely on Javelins only to deal with tanks, or troop concentrations, or anything else. They have a range of PGMs from cruise missiles to drones lobbing Hellfires, to Bradleys and Humvees carrying TOWs, just to name a few. Unless US/NATO fucks up greatly, they have a whole lot of other options than the ones they are giving to Ukraine.
 
Also, if it comes down to "can the Russians build tanks faster than America can build Javelins?", I'm betting on America. Even without the sanctions shutting down so much of Russian industry, much less with it.
 
Also, if it comes down to "can the Russians build tanks faster than America can build Javelins?", I'm betting on America. Even without the sanctions shutting down so much of Russian industry, much less with it.
It's kinda irrelevant, as a working and well supplied military will try to hit the supply dumps behind the front, and the command centers too. UralVagonZavod can stack the tanks high in Nizhny Tagil all they want, if NATO can make any fuel dump, supply depot, train unloading ramp, and command posts in the 100km strip behind the Russian border going up in flames every other night.
 
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Adding to this, the most critical part of the tank isn't the vehicle but its crew, who takes a lot longer to train properly than it takes to build the vehicle.
Yeah. Dictators like to treat people as if they were disposable, but that doesn't make it so. People are expensive assets that take a long time to bring up to a useful standard. A human being can only learn so fast, no matter how much effort is put into it. And Russia has been really been burning through its skilled personnel in this affair.

I think we can predict pretty easily how well a poorly trained (by Russian standards, at that!) tank crew in some obsolete tank dug out of storage will do against Ukrainians armed with every toy the West can drop on them.
 
The only reasons I actually realized that picture wasn't pro-American is the way guys are offering money to the Avatar of MIC, and the fact that it's not festooned with American flags. And even then it took me a little bit.

Remove the money and slap some American flags on the thing and you could sell that to Americans as a T-shirt they'd wear with pride.
 
Hostile propaganda often misses the mark like that. I've often run across propaganda meant to demonize something and not realized it was supposed to be insulting, instead of complimentary.

Part of that is cultural disconnect, part of it is the double standards of the "it's bad when the other side does it, good when our side does it" sort that almost all peoples are guilty of.
Simply put, you are not in the target audience.

I wonder how the person who drew that cartoon would react to one depicting the PLA as a giant dragon made out of tanks and jetplanes.
 
Pictured below, the insanely stormy and windy sea that caused, according to the Russian MOD, the sinkijg of the Moskva. Also notice how its radar, on top of the helicopter hangar, is in default position, confirming that there totally wasn't any missile whatsoever that it would have easily tracked and destroyed. Notice also how the burned area isn't anywhere close to the AShM launchers nor the SAM ones, thus demonstrating that the cruiser had hidden superweapons in its command deck.

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Holistic enough analysis?
 

The Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on April 16 that the Kremlin is increasingly arresting Russian and proxy officers for failures in Ukraine. The GUR reported Russian military authorities established a commission intended to run from March 2 to April 24 in occupied Horlivka to identify the reasons for personnel shortages among Russian forces. The GUR reported that Russian investigators discovered the commanders of Russia's 3rd Motor Rifle Brigade was 100% staffed at the beginning of the invasion when it in fact only had 55% of its personnel and arrested two battalion commanders in the brigade. The GUR also reported the FSB arrested DNR Defense Spokesperson Eduard Basurin for his "careless statement" on April 11 revealing Russian intent to use chemical weapons in Mariupol, though there is still no independent confirmation of the Ukrainian claim of Russian chemical weapons use.

[Afghanistan Intensifies]

Another day, another report of Holy Fucking Shit Corruption~
 
Further today in holistic warfare, Russian missile troops successfully destroyed a tyre service shop with a multi million USD(~3, even for the domestic version) worth Kalibr:



Fun part it looks like your standard issue tyre shop, that can only serve cars and light trucks, so not even the tractor brigades ... Clearly a weapon well spent, given how western intelligence says, they have a 40-60% launch failure rate, so chances that they spebt another one on this "high value" target ...

Further cases of very holistic approach:

k6a8ucjr16u81.jpg

Let's have the grunts ride on a tanker truck . The one with the big honking FLAMMABLE sign on its side with all the required other hazardous materials transport signs next to it.
 
Further today in holistic warfare, Russian missile troops successfully destroyed a tyre service shop with a multi million USD(~3, even for the domestic version) worth Kalibr:
Given all the problems they've been having with their own tires falling apart from poor quality and neglect...maybe Russians just hate tires.
 
...

Riding a nuke to your doom yahooing all the way is fatalistically cool.

Being blown to smithereens along with a dozen other dudes because you are too lazy to walk and choose to ride on a tanker truck is pathetic.
 
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