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The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

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Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#241

Post by jasonladuke0311 »

roarcher wrote: post #178
dvt wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super cool insight, I wonder what the turnaround or bureaucratic process is of fundamentally changing an SOP. It can't just be generals mandating these things (or is it?). Changing organizational processes tends to be extremely hard in large orgs, and I wonder how the military deals with it.

Although I was tangentially involved in the aforementioned incident, I'm not sure what level the change came from or what the process is but it was an extremely broad order--at least Marine Corps-wide, and possibly for all units in theather (excluding SOCOM/JSOC, I assume). So pretty high up. The incident made some pretty big waves. As far as the turnaround time, it was quick, within a few days I believe. It's worth…

You talking about the team that fell asleep in their nest and all got killed?

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#242

Post by dralley »

pydry wrote: post #234
dralley wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He tried to invade and occupy the whole fucking country. Not just "the eastern part". He went for Kherson, he went for Odesa, he went for Kyiv. The fact that he failed doesn't diminish the fact that he tried. JM was just wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVmmASrAL-Q&t=27m27s Putin gave his speech about wanting to be Peter the Great, how Ukrainians are just Russians who've been convinced otherwise by the evil Wes…

>The fact that he failed doesn't diminish the fact that he tried. The fact that he sent a force 1/10th the size required for military occupation does tend to suggest that he had a different military goal in mind when he sent the force. (not that we can prove the military objectives of sending that force with any great certainty) >No geopolitical doctrine should take for granted that all geopolitical actors are ration…

>The fact that he sent a force 1/10th the size required for military occupation does tend to suggest that he had a different military goal in mind when he sent the force.

Lol. No.

Explain the military purpose of sending riot police and parade uniforms? Explain the military purpose of getting 10,000 of his most capable special forces troops slaughtered in 3 days? Explain the 30 mile convoy?

The simplest explanation is that he in fact did believe all the shit he said on TV about Ukrainians secretly yearning to be Russians, that they would welcome the overthrow of their government, etc. That he believed Russia was the 2nd most powerful military in the world, that Ukrainians would immediately surrender, that it would be easy.

All of which is in fact backed up by intercepts and intelligence as well as the entire state narrative in the early war.

>Furthermore presenting that assumption as the sole piece of "evidence" that proves someone wrong is just...wow.

What? It's not the sole piece of evidence...

You need to read the reports about what actually happened on the ground. JM did not "nail it", he was clueless. They've been planning this for a long time. They thought they had deeply infiltrated all levels of Ukrainian government with spies whom would be able to paralyze the response (and to be fair, in the South, they did).

https://static.rusi.org/202303-SR-Unconventional-Operations-...

https://static.rusi.org/special-report-202202-ukraine-web.pd...

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#243

Post by danbolt »

jackpirate wrote: post #204
dotnet00 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only ones pretending that it isn't a defensive alliance are the ones who have some territorial claim they're hoping to take military action against. For whom it is very inconvenient that there's this group of countries who would very much rather they didn't. Everyone else sees very clearly that an alliance which only invokes when attacked and requires the resolution of territorial disputes prior to gaining member…

There was rather a lot of NATO coordination in the US-led invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan. None of the military missions in these countries were in response to the Article V mutual defense clause of the NATO treaty. It's very easy to see how these operations (and therefore the NATO alliance) would be seen as aggressive to these countries.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq wasn't the same group as NATO. France and Germany opposed the US's "coalition of the willing". [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_willing_(Iraq...

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#244

Post by eastbound »

13of40 wrote: post #89
michaelt wrote: post #64

> What is – quietly, because they haven’t tried to launch a major invasion recently – most militaries are probably similarly incapable of the basic tasks of industrial warfare? I once read an article that argued in the absence of war, it's impossible to tell if a doctrine or commander is good or not . Maybe you've got five officers up for promotion. One officer wants to give soldiers high-tech equipment, a heads-up d…

Remember how the US went into Afghanistan with HMMWVs (aluminum bodied cars with canvas doors) and M16a2s (full length battle rifles with iron sights) and left with MRAPs and A4s. You learn stuff when you switch from training to combat.

Remember when the French went to field war in 1914 bearing the official costume with BRIGHT RED pants? Yeah you really forget about war when there is no war for a generation.

Well they did have unbeatable prices on this red taint from a producer in… Germany. Yup. Some people are actually good at war.

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#245

Post by _kbh_ »

dralley wrote: post #242
pydry wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fact that he failed doesn't diminish the fact that he tried. The fact that he sent a force 1/10th the size required for military occupation does tend to suggest that he had a different military goal in mind when he sent the force. (not that we can prove the military objectives of sending that force with any great certainty) >No geopolitical doctrine should take for granted that all geopolitical actors are ration…

>The fact that he sent a force 1/10th the size required for military occupation does tend to suggest that he had a different military goal in mind when he sent the force. Lol. No. Explain the military purpose of sending riot police and parade uniforms? Explain the military purpose of getting 10,000 of his most capable special forces troops slaughtered in 3 days? Explain the 30 mile convoy? The simplest explanation is…

Let’s not forget that the Russian state media also accidentally posted an article on the victory of the war, which details pretty much everything you’ve said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60562240.amp

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#246

Post by jldugger »

Detrytus wrote: post #219
jldugger wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> will exceed # of destroyers that US has by 2040 Bear in mind that China has pretty much no oil and these 055 destroyer boats are diesel&gas turbine powered. And the US has been slowly winding down military presence since the Cold War ended basically[1]. And lemme tell you, if Taiwan goes hot, there wont be any USN boats spare to patrol the Middle East -> South China sea route, and nobody would be angry if any oil t…

> Bear in mind that China has pretty much no oil and these 055 destroyer boats are diesel&gas turbine powered. Well, then they are lucky that Russia, now sanctioned by the West, has no choice but to sell all their oil to China, at discount prices.

By way of one tiny pipeline that has to travel across an entire continent the long way, or via boat through the suez canal?

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#247

Post by HPsquared »

akiselev wrote: post #169
tester457 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the change? What lessons were learned?

The primary change to HMMWVs is the shape of the hull: they’re now designed in a V shape to deflect the force from explosives away to the sides of the vehicle.

They also weigh about 4 times as much.

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#248

Post by roarcher »

jasonladuke0311 wrote: post #241
roarcher wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I was tangentially involved in the aforementioned incident, I'm not sure what level the change came from or what the process is but it was an extremely broad order--at least Marine Corps-wide, and possibly for all units in theather (excluding SOCOM/JSOC, I assume). So pretty high up. The incident made some pretty big waves. As far as the turnaround time, it was quick, within a few days I believe. It's worth…

You talking about the team that fell asleep in their nest and all got killed?

No, they were overrun after taking a shot, which compromised their position.

The incident you're talking about happened much earlier, in Iraq. I believe this article is referencing it: https://www.dvidshub.net/news/6921/former-magnificent-bastar...

It doesn't say they fell asleep, because of course there's no way to know that. It's an assumption that has been repeated as fact, though it does seem likely.

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#249

Post by [deleted] »

marianatom wrote: post #67
newuser94303 wrote: post #41

I think that Globalization has increased the costs of war. You don't want to attack your suppliers. I also think that China is probably a paper tiger on offense but they are trying not to look like an easy target on defense. Most of their recent battles have been fist fights in the Himalayas. Deglobalization is an attempt to make war feasible because some strong countries feel like they are losing economic war and wa…

here's the thing, humanity got lucky. there was a nonzero chance that china and the dictatorships could have triumphed. if China didn't botch the chance to overtake US in 2008 with a capable dictator. if China got its hands on many advanced US military technologies. if Russia didn't botch the Ukraine invasion. if covid didn't have a vaccine, except one that China developed. I'm sure most of us are aware of the gulags…

[deleted]

Re: The impact of the ‘long peace’ on modern military capabilities

#250

Post by pydry »

dralley wrote: post #242
pydry wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fact that he failed doesn't diminish the fact that he tried. The fact that he sent a force 1/10th the size required for military occupation does tend to suggest that he had a different military goal in mind when he sent the force. (not that we can prove the military objectives of sending that force with any great certainty) >No geopolitical doctrine should take for granted that all geopolitical actors are ration…

>The fact that he sent a force 1/10th the size required for military occupation does tend to suggest that he had a different military goal in mind when he sent the force. Lol. No. Explain the military purpose of sending riot police and parade uniforms? Explain the military purpose of getting 10,000 of his most capable special forces troops slaughtered in 3 days? Explain the 30 mile convoy? The simplest explanation is…

>Lol. No. Explain the military purpose of sending riot police

OMON are not just riot police and are routinely sent on Russian military expeditions (e.g. there are some in Syria). Theres some evidence that a few hundred of the invading force of 15,000 (cite: Wikipedia) were OMON.

The question you apparently haven't asked yourself is "if their goal was occupation, why did they send a few hundred OMON troops rather than the hundred thousand they'd actually need?"

>The simplest explanation is that he in fact did believe all the shit he said on TV about Ukrainians secretly yearning to be Russians

The most likely explanation is that he was primarily gambling on a quick collapse of Ukrainian resistance and the ability to pull off a coup, before placing Opposition Platform for Life (who already had ~44 seats) in charge.

The backup/secondary plan was likely to provide a distraction such that the southern and eastern forces could link up and secure Russia's main geopolitical achilles heel - the land bridge to crimea.

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