A commenter notes:
If you look at the comments sections of Yahoo! News stories that relate the latest from Russia/Ukraine, you will see - not the heartening comments against international military interventionism that were predominant during the past few years (such as: "It's none of our business!") - but bellicose, war-drum-pounding ejaculations of truly mind-boggling jingoism instead. Part of it is that the Russians have some real hardware. People want to see a war with some real hardware. Random militants with AK-47s in the desert just isn't that exciting. People want to see opposing tanks battalions going at each other and stuff.
Two weeks ago I was finishing up a Taki's column citing Steven Pinker’s 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature about the declining frequency of war, when it occurred to me to add a postscript:
Of course, optimism about a peaceful future seemed sensible 100 years ago, too.
The two countries that have the tanks, terrain, and mutual border to conceivably replay the Battle of Kursk are Russia (2,562 tanks in service and plenty more in reserve) and Ukraine (725 tanks running).
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105 comments:
3+ to 1? Where the tanks on the 3 side being more modern and better?
Not quite Kursk. More like the most recent Super Bowl.
Or 12 years a slave versus everything else.
Maybe that's what people want to see.
I'd like to see us keep this thing from boiling over until we've got a few battalions of butt-kicking babes to go in and show the Russians what girl power is all about!
It'll be exactly like "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" -- except for the gang rape in the first scene after she surrenders. And the rest of the movie, of course.
There is NOTHING like being on a tank.
Sure, a fighter jet might be cool from a tech perspective and the view. But you don't actually lead men.
The camaraderie, the closeness, the informality between ranks once you are inside the beast. Also the smells, the sounds and the barely controlled chaos at times.
You feel like some mounted knight from history, but able to reach out and touch somebody on the move, in the dark, with pinpoint accuracy from miles away.
Actually, the fact that both Russia and Ukraine have some hardware probably means that neither side will try to push the envelope too far, simply because the potential costs would be too great (Contrast this with, say, Bosnia in 1992: the Bosnians had 0 tanks then, while the Serbs had, well, lots). Hopefully the wiser heads in the Obama administration (and the EU) will see this and try to broker something that takes into account both Ukrainian and Russian interests. I'm no prophet and could easily be wrong, but I suspect some kind of quiet deal will be in the offing over the next few months: some kind of Russian sovereignty in Crimea in exhange for a hands-off approach in the rest of Ukraine, as long as some sort of magninimity is shown towards Yanukovych and his ilk and the oil pipelines are untouched.
RE:Tank Porn,
One of the more fascinating discussions in BETTER ANGELS involves the aesthetic appeal of violence.Pinker argues that one of the reasons why poison gas was not used in WW1 and WW2 is because it does not stir the blood. Blowing stuff up is cool, but wiping people out with gas is something of a downer.
Regarding your Taki article:
"Why the outbreak of jingoism in the Obamaite press?"
I would recommend "Obamanite" (or possibly "Obaman") rather than "Obamaite".
It rolls off the tongue more easily. No full glottal stop is required. [Is that the right term?]
I'm a Canadian probably about to be taxed heavily on phantom income..I can't see anyway out of it. First MtGox effectively robbed me, then the Canadian government is going to tax me for income that is now completely wiped out because of some artifical numbers that exist in a database.
(I had funds in a bitcoin exchange called mount gox which, it turns out was ran by an incompetent egomaniac (but he fooled a lot of people into believing that he had everything under control before the apocalypse).
I'll probably never get the taxes back in captital loss deductions because you can only apply against capital gains anyway and there's a limit to how much you can apply each year.
So, because I hate Canada more than ever today, and apparently as Canadians were supposed to be be extremely concerned about who is in charge in the Ukraine...
Anyway if a war starts you know what side I'll be supporting (not Canada's)
It occurs to me that if Ukraine could be partitioned into a (broadly) west/Europe-looking western half and a (broadly) east/Moscow looking eastern half, with the Crimea given autonomy or annexed to Russia proper, then this could give the various factions countries they could feel relatively comfortable in, and provide both the EU/NATO and Russia with a double layer of buffering which would reduce the potential for this sort of thing happening again.
But I could well be wrong. And partitions tend to be bloody and traumatic, so it's probably a non-starter.
Russian tanks are in service while Ukrainian tanks are running. Where are they running to?
Russia's realistically going to commit only a fraction of their available armored forces to the Ukraine. Ukraine can realistically commit all of theirs, so the disparity isn't as great as it might look at first glance.
Part of what makes modern armored battles so interesting is that most panzers in service today are still geared heavily towards the quantity side of the quantity/quality tradeoff, unlike, say, fighter jets. There's enough numerical mass at play to make maneuver tactics interesting, unlike air or naval combat, which promise to very quickly devolve into victory for whoever spent the most and the smartest on their toys.
Russia's realistically going to commit only a fraction of their available armored forces to the Ukraine. Ukraine can realistically commit all of theirs, so the disparity isn't as great as it might look at first glance.
Part of what makes modern armored battles so interesting is that most panzers in service today are still geared heavily towards the quantity side of the quantity/quality tradeoff, unlike, say, fighter jets. There's enough numerical mass at play to make maneuver tactics interesting, unlike air or naval combat, which promise to very quickly devolve into victory for whoever spent the most and the smartest on their toys.
You want Tank Porn, the Russians have released Stalingrad IMAX 3-D.
"There is NOTHING like being on a tank.
Sure, a fighter jet might be cool from a tech perspective and the view. But you don't actually lead men.
The camaraderie, the closeness, the informality between ranks once you are inside the beast. Also the smells, the sounds and the barely controlled chaos at times.
You feel like some mounted knight from history, but able to reach out and touch somebody on the move, in the dark, with pinpoint accuracy from miles away."
You've actually been on one in action? Most of the military people I talked to who had been in wars told me that it really, really, really sucked.
The comments sections are filled with conservetards who will say anything to criticize Obama, even if it is, as the commenter pointed out, contradicting their previous stance against interventionism.
I'd like to see that battle...with 300+ American A-10s backing the Ukrainians. I'm sure quite a few Warthog pilots would like to see it, as well.
There is NOTHING like being on a tank.
I was in the USCM infantry and the few times I was in an armored vehicle, I felt like I was a sitting duck at the mercy of someone else's judgment.
I know it was just an emotional response, not necessarily rational, but I'd take being on foot anyday to being in a tank that just screams "drop bomb here" to airpower.
They are impressive clanking beasts, though.
Lou (Bernoulli):
Can't comment on your comment but I really like your Law of Large Numbers.
As the day wears on, wiser heads are popping up in those comments sections. But the first responders were jingos.
Here's some Fred Reed to sober one's thoughts.
(1) I doubt that Ukraine has 725 serviceable, up to date tanks.
(2) Fighting in Ukraine would probably be much more similar to Bosnia/Serbia/Kosovo and NATO's intervention therein, more than any tank battle.
(3) Young fellows, the kind who post lots of jingoistic Internet comments, continue to be fascinated by tank warfare because computer games are much more suited for simulating tank battles than for modeling messy, multi-sided guerrilla war and counter insurgency action. See worldoftanks.com and the like.
Tank warfare is the most miserable. Horrific casualties when arty gets zeroed in.
WWI had extensive poison gas use bc it worked very well as an area denial weapon. WWIi did not bc armies moved too fast fully mechanized. Hence area denial to foot soldiers less useful.
The one saving grace of this situation seems to be that the troops on either side really don't seem to have any appetite to start killing each other. The skinheads in the street - well, I'm sure they could be persuaded rather easily. But the actual soldiers appear to be reluctant. Maybe it's just too fratricidal to stomach.
You've actually been on one in action? Most of the military people I talked to who had been in wars told me that it really, really, really sucked.
Yes, I've heard that while it's fun to watch tank battles, being in a tank really sucks because they're like death traps. They're big targets for other tanks and infantrymen to fire rockets into.
"‘Russia is Looking for a Hot War,’ Says Georgia’s Former President"
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/03/russia-is-looking-for-a-hot-war-says-georgia-s-former-president.html
"Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili knows a thing or two about Russian invasions. He warns that Ukraine may not be able to stop an all-out war with Russia.
There may be no way to stop Vladimir Putin from starting a hot war with Ukraine, so Ukraine and its Western allies must prepare for the worst and do it quickly, according to former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Saakashvili, who fought the Russian army in 2008 for five days after the Russians invaded, is in Kiev to advise the new Ukrainian government. He says he’s providing counsel on how to hopefully avoid an all-out war with Putin’s army. But Saakashvili is also there to deliver a warning to Kiev: Russia appears to be preparing for armed conflict in Ukraine and the world must be ready for that battle, just in case Putin can’t be dissuaded from the fight.
“Right now my advice to the Ukraine government is to maintain maximum restraint, but to prepare for the worst, because I don’t think Vladimir Putin is going to stop where he is. He is not going to stop anywhere until he gets rid of the leadership in Kiev,” Saakashvili said in an interview with The Daily Beast on Monday. “The West should be ready that there might be a war here.”
There several similarities between Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia and its 2012 invasion of Ukraine and one main difference...."
"Saakashvili, who fought the Russian army in 2008 for five days after the Russians invaded, is in Kiev to advise the new Ukrainian government."
Yep, they're fucked.
I would recommend "Obamanite" (or possibly "Obaman") rather than "Obamaite".
Obamaite serves the additional purpose of reminding one of "catamite," and is therefore preferred.
Tanks are more or less awesome, depending on what the other guys have. M-1 Abrams vs Iraqi T-72's, with American air supremacy was a turkey shoot for us, but it really sucked for the Iraqi tankers.
"Saakashvili, who fought the Russian army in 2008 for five days after the Russians invaded, is in Kiev to advise the new Ukrainian government."
I guess they didn't read his resume? Or maybe he really aced the interview?
Our recent wars have been real downers: troops riding in million dollar armored vehicles waiting to get blown up by an old, buried artillery shell.
Can't fault the hajjis for not wanting to go head to head with Abrams tanks, but still, meh.
With whites at less than 8% of the World's population, a war between white nations would be an incredibly stupid act nowadays.
Obamaite serves the additional purpose of reminding one of "catamite," and is therefore preferred.
Wouldn't that work better as "Obamite"?
The Ukrainians need something revolutionary to fight those Russkie tanks. I say they should revive the FOG-M guided missile but incorporate the recently developed graphene imaging sensors from NTU in Singapore that are claimed to a 1,000X more sensitive than current sensors. Use cheap plastic optics. The processing power of current microprocessors should enable a fire and forget auto-tracking missile for the price of dirt. The FO datalink could enable instant retargeting for a soldier. Yes, fuse a Sony Playstation with a commercial FO transceiver module, and FO waveguide for the soldier interface. I'm sure that the DARPA folks could work out the rest before 100Th Anniversary of The Great War!
Anonydroid at 7:33 PM said: I guess they didn't read his resume? Or maybe he really aced the interview?
Hunsdon said, straight of face: He had a new tie.
Anonymous said that
"I'd like to see that battle...with 300+ American A-10s backing the Ukrainians. I'm sure quite a few Warthog pilots would like to see it, as well."
They would be slaughtered. a-10 warthogs are vastly overrated jets and are extremely vulnerable to both ground based anti-air and other jet fighters. During the iraq invasion several a-10s were shot down by saddams pitiful ageing anti-air defences. Russia has the best anti-air in the entire world. The warthogs wouldn't even last a day before being blown out of the sky.
Here's an interesting piece of information picked up from the Russian media: In a VSIOM opinion survey from September 2013, 29 percent of Russians consider the entire area of Ukraine as Russian territory
I know it was just an emotional response, not necessarily rational, but I'd take being on foot anyday to being in a tank that just screams "drop bomb here" to airpower.
I was in the infantry and I felt the same way. In peacetime I might want to be a tanker because they don't walk with heavy packs, they get to stay warm in the winter inside the tank, etc. But no way did I want to be in one in war. A $3 million tank is a big target. And if a modern army has guided weaponry that costs $50K per round, it makes economic sense to waste such a round on a high value target such as a tank, not on a couple of infantrymen on the ground.
I haven't seen anything about the Ukrainian military (journalism!), but I'm guessing at least 40-50% sympathizes with the Russians. I highly doubt the Ukrainian military is going to get involved here.
With whites at less than 8% of the World's population, a war between white nations would be an incredibly stupid act nowadays.
Best comment on this or any blog with regard to this subject.
I haven't seen anything about the Ukrainian military (journalism!), but I'm guessing at least 40-50% sympathizes with the Russians. I highly doubt the Ukrainian military is going to get involved here.
It has already started. This Ukrainian admiral defected.
Anonymous:"They would be slaughtered. a-10 warthogs are vastly overrated jets and are extremely vulnerable to both ground based anti-air and other jet fighters. During the iraq invasion several a-10s were shot down by saddams pitiful ageing anti-air defences."
"The A-10 was used in combat for the first time during the Gulf War in 1991, destroying more than 900 Iraqi tanks, 2,000 other military vehicles and 1,200 artillery pieces, making it by far the most effective aircraft of the war.[4] A-10s also shot down two Iraqi helicopters with the GAU-8 cannon. The first of these was shot down by Captain Robert Swain over Kuwait on 6 February 1991, marking the A-10's first air-to-air victory.[74] Four A-10s were shot down during the war, all by surface-to-air missiles. Another three battle-damaged A-10s and OA-10As returned to base but were written off, some sustaining additional damage in crashed landings.[75][76] The A-10 had a mission capable rate of 95.7%, flew 8,100 sorties, and launched 90% of the AGM-65 Maverick missiles fired in the conflict.[77] Shortly after the Gulf War, the Air Force gave up on the idea of replacing the A-10 with a close air support version of the F-16.[78]" (WIKIPEDIA)
"Operation Iraqi Freedom began on 20 March 2003. Sixty OA-10/A-10 aircraft took part in early combat there.[84] United States Air Forces Central issued Operation Iraqi Freedom: By the Numbers, a declassified report about the aerial campaign in the conflict on 30 April 2003. During that initial invasion of Iraq, A-10s had a mission capable rate of 85% in the war and fired 311,597 rounds of 30 mm ammunition. A single A-10 was shot down near Baghdad International Airport by Iraqi fire late in the campaign. The A-10 also flew 32 missions in which the aircraft dropped propaganda leaflets over Iraq." (WIKIPEDIA)
anonymous:"Russia has the best anti-air in the entire world."
For this statement to be true, every other nation in the world's anti-air must be utter crap.
The world is never going to see another huge tank battle between relatively evenly matched forces, any more than it is going to see a repeat of the trench warfare and over the top assaults of WWI or massive gunnery battles between capital ships.
All these (and many other) phenomena were products of a specific fragment of time and its relative mix of technology, costs, defensive/offensive capabilities, and so forth.
Even the Army realizes this and much of the discussion there now is about the post-tank era, with tank factories closing and such. Eventually, the classic tank is going to be as anachronistic as a musket, which means, like a musket-derived weaponry, perhaps still useful but much altered and virtually unrecognizeable against its original form.
Anonymous:"With whites at less than 8% of the World's population, a war between white nations would be an incredibly stupid act nowadays."
A statement that assumes that White people in , say, Russia feel that they have something in common with White people in ,say, Spain.They don't.
"saddams pitiful ageing anti-air defences."
Iraq's army was Russian exports, not locally made, so we were fighting Russian equipment.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/air-defence-equipment.htm
"Russia has the best anti-air in the entire world."
If by "entire world" you mean "non-western world".
You would target anti-air first, then go for the tanks.
And all the while, the pc, gay worshipping forces of the west stand around mewling helplessly.
No way are we going to tangle with a real enemy or fight a real war. Since Vietnam, it has all been goatherds killed w/high-tech standoff weaponry or engaging (which overly dignifies the reality) forces (Gulf War I) so badly led by corrupt leadership that they had no will to fight.
That's not to say there are still some heroic, effective elements remaining in the forces here and there, but honestly, our focus on letting Suzy and gays and whoever else dress up and play sailor/soldier boy is simply a testament to how safe war is for U.S. forces these days due to the pitiable enemies we have chosen and the extravagant weaponry thus available for the most minimal of hostile encounters.
If you look at the comments sections of Yahoo! News stories that relate the latest from Russia/Ukraine, you will see - not the heartening comments against international military interventionism that were predominant during the past few years (such as: "It's none of our business!") - but bellicose, war-drum-pounding ejaculations of truly mind-boggling jingoism
I looked. I don't see that.
For this statement to be true, every other nation in the world's anti-air must be utter crap.
Keep in mind the definition of anti-air. It deals with ground based missiles, artillery and man portable launchers, etc. It does not deal with air-to-air.
The US army handles anti-air. The army does not have many anti-air assets. They have the Patriot and man portable stingers, but we don't have many compared to other nations. We even recently got rid of the Bradley Linebacker. Instead we spend top dollar on our Air Force which is supposed to gain air supremacy over any battlefield, thus negating our need for anti-air.
Russia and other nations, which cannot match our strength in both quality and quantity of fighter aircraft, rely more on anti-air. It would not surprise me that Russia has the largest and most sophisticated anti-air in the world. The old USSR definitely did.
An Anonymous wrote:
"anonymous:"Russia has the best anti-air in the entire world."
For this statement to be true, every other nation in the world's anti-air must be utter crap."
It really is true. Russia marches to it's own drummer in a lot of ways compared to American and European militaries.
Mattias Rust notwithstanding, they have really stressed anti-aircraft capability for a long time.
Most Western militaries from what I can gather hand out stingers, and occasionally have missile details. But they really rely on fighters to deal with enemy aircraft.
Russia has fighters of course, but they have kept and emphasized a whole slew of anti-aircraft equipment that ground forces can use.
I think they might also be the only military left in the world with sizeable number of "Ack Ack" guns.
In short my take is that most militaries don't really bother. If fighters don't keep the airspace clear they don't really have the capability to deal with things.
Of course we don't really know how all that Russian equipment would do in real battles. Not sure that situation has come up for them, facing an enemy with real air power since... WWII I guess.
The US army handles anti-air. The army does not have many anti-air assets.
What is interesting to me is the complete absence of anti-air in the sub forces, especially considering that airplanes/choppers are a fairly mainstream way of detecting and destroying submarines.
So that fabulously expensive trident boat has absolutely no weapons to use against a helicopter hovering above. Seeing how it can launch missiles from underwater at targets thousands of miles away, ya'd think...
Israelis vaporized a Syrian weapons research facility guarded by the state of the art S300 gargoyle without losing a single jet. Russian AAA is manageable.
"Why the outbreak of jingoism in the Obamaite press?"
No "brown people" involved. Duh.
Israelis vaporized a Syrian weapons research facility guarded by the state of the art S300 gargoyle without losing a single jet. Russian AAA is manageable.
Hopefully we will never find this out, but the only way to determine whether modern Russian anti-air works is for some nation, other than an Arab one, to try it out for real. Arabs make brave raiders and seem willing to die for their cause. But using modern weaponry in an organized military is not one of their strengths. That's why I would not get too excited about what Israel has done or what the US did to Iraq in 1991.
Re: Submarine AA
Good submarines can get deep enough and be quiet enough that there's nothing an airborne asset can do to spot them unless it already knows where they are. Popping up to take potshots would defeat the entire purpose of "submarine", so nobody's really bothered.
Re: Tanks are dead
Various up-and-coming generals have been saying that for a long time. Unfortunately, there's not really anything that can replace a tank for shear survivability and direct firepower, hence the untimely death of most of the American FCS project.
Aircraft take lots of time most won't have to co-ordinate and don't really have the endurance to last through a contested frontline battle. Helicopters suffer from the same fate, with the added penalty of being vulnerable to every AA trick in the book. Artillery is nice when you can get it, but counterbattery fire is good enough nowadays that you can't really bother with it most of the time you're facing hostile tanks.
Lots of time and money has been spent developing ways to kill tanks because they're very hard to kill. The result is that there are lots of nice situational weapons that might be effective against one specific enemy platform, but there are no infantry-portable magic bullets.
"I think they might also be the only military left in the world with sizeable number of "Ack Ack" guns."
LOL. Give credit where credit is due. Keeping 1930's technology alive. I think they just copied a 2 cm Flakvierling 38. 38 as in 1938.
Ack Ack couldn't stop ww2 era prop fighters dive bombing runs, and ww2 cas planes were designed to take hits and keep flying (and they often did).
A statement that assumes that White people in , say, Russia feel that they have something in common with White people in ,say, Spain.They don't.
If my brother grew up with another family, not feeling anything in common with me, not even being aware that we are brothers, well, he would still be my brother.
Besides, Russians usually are vaguely aware that there is a white race, of which they are members, and of which Chinese or Africans are not members of. But of course national allegiance is more important to them, especially when US whites are busy lecturing Eastern European whites about how not be racist.
Anonymous wrote:
'"I think they might also be the only military left in the world with sizeable number of "Ack Ack" guns."
LOL. Give credit where credit is due. Keeping 1930's technology alive. I think they just copied a 2 cm Flakvierling 38. 38 as in 1938.
Ack Ack couldn't stop ww2 era prop fighters dive bombing runs, and ww2 cas planes were designed to take hits and keep flying (and they often did).'
Really? There aren't a few differences between then and now?
I have an assumption, and correct me if I am wrong.
Almost none of the AA rounds fired in battle in past conflicts hit planes.
Yet AA fire did shoot down some planes.
Hmmm being a techy at times, I think it would be way cool to make a coordinated system using modern computer technology to target enemy aircraft and fire as a unit.
No more guys turning cranks like in those newsreels.
Increase the hit rate from .5% or whatever it is to 4 or 5% and you have a whole new ball game.
And being members of a vague category like race means
...what?
Nothing, if the white race means nothing to you. But it means a lot of things if it does mean something to you.
Like for example you will understand why it would be an extremely dumb idea for whites to keep fighting old wars against each other.
BTW the Spanish and the Russians are cousins. No matter what spin you put on it, if you put a Russian, a Spaniard, a Chinese, an African, an Amerindian, a South Asian, etc. together, most of the time you will cluster the Spaniard with the Russian.
Popping up to take potshots would defeat the entire purpose of "submarine", so nobody's really bothered.
I doubt he had surfacing in mind. What about when a sub is under attack from a helicopter? It would useful to have something to hit back with. Go ahead and laugh, but what about a radar+missile launcher unit that is fired into the air and as it descends the radar scans the vicinity, detects the helicopter and fires a sidewinder? If it's at all feasible I suppose you would want to launch multiple units (including decoys) to prevent the helicopter shooting them down before they can launch the missile.
And being members of a vague category like race means
...what? In terms of policy?
Anyone who has lived in a massively multiracial society is aware that race means a lot, whether or not he wants admit it out loud. The fact that it today means nothing in terms of policy is the fault of policy, not of the meaningless (lol) of race. It's policy that needs to catch up to baseline racial reality, not the other way around.
National policy is more important to everyone.
The idea that national policy is necessarily more important than racial identity is a vestige of the past. What is the point of defending to the death a national policy that renders domestic life increasingly unlivable?
"Anonymous said...
And, of course, the Russians love to lecture Americans about how racist Americans are."
I've never met a Russian who did so. You must be thinking about Germans.
"Anonymous said...
""With whites at less than 8% of the World's population, a war between white nations would be an incredibly stupid act nowadays.""
A statement that assumes that White people in , say, Russia feel that they have something in common with White people in ,say, Spain.They don't."
Drop a Russian and a Spaniard together into downtown Baghdad or Mogadishu or Detroit, and I guarantee you they will damn well feel they have something in common.
"Anonymous said...
Needless to say, Spaniards and Russians are not brothers. For that matter, they are not even cousins."
In the context of ethno-linguistic groups, Russians and Spaniards are indeed cousins.
"And being members of a vague category like race means
...what? In terms of policy?"
You may not be interested in race, but race is interested in you.
I'll grant that race is very often a rather empty identity category. But the beauty of racial identity is that if you overcome whatever ethnic or cultural differences you have with someone of the same race then you have something valuable in hand. The feeling that very quickly blossoms is that you share something deeply meaningful in common.
Contrast that to, say, a Sudanese and a Mexican coming together and overcoming their "barriers to communication" (or whatever the appropriate jargon is here), what have they accomplished? They have accomplished "tolerance," sure. Tolerance is something real and it's something valuable, but the problem is it's... mere tolerance. It doesn't go any further or deeper than that. There's no real warmth or juice in it. There's nothing to draw one in. It's purely perfunctory.
All war sucks, and is nasty, dirty, and you are a target no matter where you are and when (particularly theses days). I'd rather have the equivalent of several feet of steel between me and the pointy things coming at me.
But as to a tank sucking worse than the infantry or another combat arms job: heard popping sounds in the middle of a relatively flat and rock free patch of desert. When we went to a maintenance halt, we did during ops checks. Turns out those popping sounds were unexploded cluster bomb units we ran over. An infantryman or light skin would have been shredded. We lost a few track pads (the rubber blocks that bolt into the track blocks), replaced them a day or two later, rolled on.
I will be candid that I was done with tanking before the IED threat really ramped up, then again, a tank isn't that much worse than any other armored vehicle save those with specially designed, boat-shaped hulls.
Completely incorrect.
Steve please, publish and allow a rebuttal.
20mm and 40mm auto cannon are and we're devastatingly effective AA weapons. The RAF sent about 100 bombers to attack the Germans in the Ardennes, the big panzer traffic jam in 1940 and lost 60. All due to AA guns between 20-40mm... These were the highest operational loses for the RAF in service history.
20mm and 40mm firing from ground positions also make helicopter missions virtually impossible. Heavy cannon like that also double up as anti-vehicle and anti personnel weapons without peer.
The Russians looked at Wehrmacht orbat that contained lavish AA equipment and wisely copied it. AA hasn't been a worry for American forces in operational history afaik.
If you analyze the actual effect of AA and AAA it was vitally important as an attritional weapon. It was more effective than interceptors in night conditions and made daylight raids highly lethal for bombers and made low altitude attacks suicidal.
"It occurs to me that if Ukraine could be partitioned into a (broadly) west/Europe-looking western half and a (broadly) east/Moscow looking eastern half, with the Crimea given autonomy or annexed to Russia proper"
That would be the ideal solution imo (caveat as always that border areas tend to be mixed).
.
Obamite
.
"A statement that assumes that White people in , say, Russia feel that they have something in common with White people in ,say, Spain.They don't."
That depends if they have a mutual enemy.
Mr. Anon:"I've never met a Russian who did so. You must be thinking about Germans."
You must know very few Russians; critiquing America for her treatment of Blacks has a venerable tradition in Russia, going all the way back to Tsarist times ("You Americans talk of serfdom; look at your Black slaves. In Russia, Pushkin was a great writer; in America, he would be lynched," etc).
Mr Anon:"In the context of ethno-linguistic groups, Russians and Spaniards are indeed cousins."
In linguistic terms, so are the Gypsies. What does that mean? In real world terms?It certainly does not mean that the Russians feel "cousinly" towards the Gypsies.
Mr Anon:"You may not be interested in race, but race is interested in you."
Oh, I'm very interested in HBD; I just don't see much prospect for it being the foundation of a nation's foreign policy any time soon.
Mr Anon:"Drop a Russian and a Spaniard together into downtown Baghdad or Mogadishu or Detroit, and I guarantee you they will damn well feel they have something in common."
Drop a Spaniard and a Japanese together into downtown Baghdad or Mogadishu or Detroit, and I guarantee you they will damn well feel they have something in common.
Drop a White American and a Black American down into Baghdad or Mogadishu or Chiapas and I can guarantee you they will damn well feel they have something in common.
Drop a Mestizo Mexican and a Spaniard together into Moscow or Detroit, or Baghdad, and I can guarantee you that they will damn well feel they have something in common.
etc, etc
Silver;"Anyone who has lived in a massively multiracial society is aware that race means a lot, whether or not he wants admit it out loud. The fact that it today means nothing in terms of policy is the fault of policy, not of the meaningless (lol) of race. It's policy that needs to catch up to baseline racial reality, not the other way around."
And policy will not.
Silver:"The idea that national policy is necessarily more important than racial identity is a vestige of the past."
If it's the past, it certainly seems to be a living past.
Silver:" What is the point of defending to the death a national policy that renders domestic life increasingly unlivable?"
unlivable only for some.
Reinor Tor;"Nothing, if the white race means nothing to you. But it means a lot of things if it does mean something to you."
It means nothing to people with power. It means nothing to Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Hillary Clinton, the Koch brothers, etc.
Reinor Tor:"Like for example you will understand why it would be an extremely dumb idea for whites to keep fighting old wars against each other."
It was a dumb idea for Germany to go to war in 1914, but it still did. People do stupid things all the time.
Reinor Tor:"BTW the Spanish and the Russians are cousins. No matter what spin you put on it, if you put a Russian, a Spaniard, a Chinese, an African, an Amerindian, a South Asian, etc. together, most of the time you will cluster the Spaniard with the Russian."
I think that people are misconstruing my comments on "cousinhood." I'm not talking about the actual degree of genetic clustering or linguistic closeness. These are objective facts. So, yes, Russian and Spanish are both I-E languages, and yes, they cluster together when matched against, say, Koreans.This is not what I am talking about.
I am talking about the fact that nations do not make policy on the basis of such criteria. The English do not feel a special sense of closeness to Russians because of genetic clustering or because they both speak I-E languages. They feel a special closeness to fellow Anglos like the Australians.Only people on the internet imagine that things like genetic clusters create policy.
Reiner Tor:"If my brother grew up with another family, not feeling anything in common with me, not even being aware that we are brothers, well, he would still be my brother."
Do you really think that the Spanish feel that the Russians are their brothers?
LOL. Give credit where credit is due. Keeping 1930's technology alive. I think they just copied a 2 cm Flakvierling 38. 38 as in 1938.
Ack Ack couldn't stop ww2 era prop fighters dive bombing runs, and ww2 cas planes were designed to take hits and keep flying (and they often did).
You have the wrong image in your mind. Here are some examples
German Gephard
Skyshield - successor to Gephard.
Here is a 2 minute video in German of their flakpanzer Gephard.
"Almost none of the AA rounds fired in battle in past conflicts hit planes.
"Yet AA fire did shoot down some planes.
The USA developed Radio Frequency proximity fuzes for AAA in WWII, as did others.
"Hmmm being a techy at times, I think it would be way cool to make a coordinated system using modern computer technology to target enemy aircraft and fire as a unit.
Well, the US Army developed the 75mm M51 Sky Sweeper in the early 1950s, the Russians had the ZSU-23 mobile AAA using 23mm guns, and battle tested it during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. The US Navy has the Phalanx AD system that combines the radar and 20mm Vulcan as a last ditch anti-cruise missile unit.
If the Ukranians had kept their nuclear weapons like John Mearshiemer wanted, all this could have been avoided.
Russia withdrew from east Europe and now instead of a buffer zone, they have NATO anti nuke missile defense going into Poland in a year, and Ukraine invited into NATO. Russia is finished as a great power. The Russian elite all have their money banked and kids educated abroad. Perhaps that is the Russian secret weapon: no one wants to go there.
See mature tank porn
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10672722/In-pictures-Inside-Ukraines-tank-graveyard.html
anon:
"A statement that assumes that White people in , say, Russia feel that they have something in common with White people in ,say, Spain.They don't."
Yeah they do. Just like any other racial group. I think even Liberals feel it; they just invert it. My Liberal friends judge whites far more harshly than non-whites for the same actions; often in the same sentence!
First, of course race is not a basis for policy for the present time. For someone to whom it means something, and I think there's quite a few of us commenting here, this is wrong. Hence our comments how dumb it is for two white nations to fight each other. If it means nothing to you, then just coolly notice the fact that apparently race does mean a lot to a whole lot of people commenting here and there, and that if these commenters made policy, then policy would be different.
Second, it has been a really strong feeling for a whole lot of people. Like in 19th century America even Southern and Eastern European whites found it easier to immigrate and get status than non-Europeans, especially non-Caucasoids. So it is a real feeling for a lot of people. There were even intellectuals for whom it actually meant more than national allegiance.
Third, it also means a lot to ordinary people with little education, like football (soccer) hooligans and the likes. Especially in Russia, where racism is not as frowned upon as in the US or in Western Europe.
Fourth, linguistically Hungarians and Finns are not Indo-Europeans, while Pakistanis and Persians are. But genetically Hungarians and Finns cluster with their neighboring nations, just as Pakistanis and Persians do. So actually Pakistanis and Persians cluster with other South and Southwest Asians, unlike Hungarians and Finns who cluster with other Central and Northern (Northeastern) Europeans, respectively. This is not surprising, for example in my case (I'm Hungarian) I know that my paternal ancestors still spoke a German dialect in the second half of the 19th century. (They came from present day Southern Germany and Austria.) In Hungary it's common knowledge that, as the saying goes, very few of us came with Árpád (the legendary Hungarian prince who conquered the Carpathian Basin in the late 9th century).
Fifth, people's beliefs are sometimes contradictory. Russians might be lecturing the Americans about racism and at the same time feel some sort of racial fraternity. Since I know the most about Hungarian nationalism, let me give this example. Hungarian nationalists at present often have extremely irrational views about Hungarians being related to the Japanese, to Kazakhs, to whoever, and is often pointed against Western Europeans who are perceived (at times with some justification) of having betrayed us, and often to the point of lecturing them about their racism, colonialism, etc. Still when Mandela died, the semi-official daily of the present moderately nationalist conservative government was the only large daily in the country that didn't assign most of the front page to the topic, and who was the least hagiographic (pointing out the many problems of present day SA). Newspapers farther to the nationalist right outright condemned Mandela, one website ran a huge title about the "death of the white-hating Negro", etc. So while Hungarian nationalism is not especially pro-white, somehow it feels a lot in common with South African whites and little in common with blacks. After all, why not side with the nationalism of South African blacks, especially if you otherwise condemn "colonialism"? Why side with South African whites? Same nationalist websites (who never forget to mention the Amerindians and black slavery whenever an American ambassador says something about Hungarian "racism" or anti-Semitism) also sometimes run stories on the Knockout Game a.k.a. Polar Bear Hunting. (I don't read printed papers, so I don't know that much about them. The Mandela thing was picked up in the Hungarian leftist blogosphere, attracting a torrent of pro-white commenters.)
So apparently race means a lot to a lot of people, especially those who are not affected by the official ideology. Maybe because European culture has been tilted towards the ideology of "anti-racism", it rarely if ever affects policy. But imagine a world where concentric circles of loyalty to one's family, ethnic group, race would be official ideology. This would clearly resonate with a lot of people.
They don't need to be manned. That's going to be the big thing.
Anon 3/3 7:56, there were 5 (FIVE) A-10s lost during Desert Storm; three shot down outright, one shot down when the pilot tried to engage AA crews when his wingman went down, and one crash landing. I remember watching a CNN story at the time about the A-10's resilience, showing Warthogs fresh from sorties riddled with bullet and shrapnel holes but still operational.
A friend's brother was a SF operator during the war and he told us he was surprised at the amount of damage one depleted uranium round did to armor. He described tanks on the Highway of Death with a single hole that, when they popped the hatch, was totally incinerated, which kinda speaks to the survivability of tanks on today's battlefield.
If you want to see tank porn, watch the Abkhazian Network News Agency reports from Syria. This is by far the best war journalism in recent years. The terse, no nonsense Russian reporters focus on the tactical military aspects of the conflict rather than victimology driven "narratives" like the Western media.
"Drop a Spaniard and a Japanese together into downtown Baghdad or Mogadishu or Detroit, and I guarantee you they will damn well feel they have something in common.
Drop a White American and a Black American down into Baghdad or Mogadishu or Chiapas and I can guarantee you they will damn well feel they have something in common.
Drop a Mestizo Mexican and a Spaniard together into Moscow or Detroit, or Baghdad, and I can guarantee you that they will damn well feel they have something in common."
Nice try, but all very questionable. The first one a Spaniard and Japanese what do they have in common, other than both being strangers in a strange place. The second one, I would probably want to make friends a native in any of those places (even Mogadishu) than a black American. The third one, the only thing they have in common is that they speak the same language, but then again so does a black from Ghana and white from New Zealand, why would you want to be buddies with that when you could find someone much more intelligent and better from one of those cities, other than perhaps trying to show off how righteous a liberal you are.
"And being members of a vague category like race means ...what? In terms of policy?"
Other than determining election results (race is the number one factor that has won the last few elections in the USA).
Deciding who gets special treatment in higher education entries and scholarships.
Massive relocation of taxpayer money to certain race groups.
For being so vague it sure does cause a lot of money and politics to spent on it.
"It means nothing to people with power. It means nothing to Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Hillary Clinton, the Koch brothers, etc."
One cannot determine whether they care or because they are not allowed to care.
No one is allowed to have power nowadays if they do not bow to the authorities when it comes to race. The fact that you mentioned only whites kind of gives it all away, because other rich people be they Jewish, Black, Chinese etc. are allowed to care and boast about their race.
Minor point but if Ukraine has $3000 per capita GDP or similar then almost none of their armored vehicles will be in working condition.
.
"watch the Abkhazian Network News Agency reports from Syria"
interesting tip - will check it out
Re: Anon 15:49
Technology marches on. The 30mm that made the A-10 so feared is no longer effective against most modern heavy armor. It'll still rattle the cage, but the purpose of the gun is now to destroy light armored vehicles and infantry.
The AGM-65 Mavricks will still punch through almost any armor, but they're relatively slow, heavy, and expensive missiles fired from a long way off - A prime target for modern active defense systems. Seeking cluster munitions work, but you have to fly over the tank in question to deploy them. JDAMs can't hit a moving target without lots of skill, and LGBs require that somebody stay within line-of-site to the target for the duration of the bomb's flight.
The weapons you can mount on a helicopter are restricted in weight (and thus warhead capabilities and range) - and helicopters are more vulnerable to AA than aircraft are.
Infantry-carried weapons face even more restrictive limitations: Weight kills a lot of otherwise effective platforms, range is limited, and acquisition capabilities generally suck. Infantry who can get close to the tank stand a fair chance, but smart tankers never give them an opportunity to do that.
The fact that you mentioned only whites kind of gives it all away, because other rich people be they Jewish, Black, Chinese etc. are allowed to care and boast about their race.
Remember, not all groups are allowed to possess Amy Chua's three killer traits.
Drop a Spaniard and a Japanese together into downtown Baghdad or Mogadishu or Detroit, and I guarantee you they will damn well feel they have something in common.
They will have something in common, but not very much in common. I spent over year living in Thailand in a city in which there people from a wide variety of countries, Europe, N. America, S. America, middle east, south asia, even some africans. Nothing was more obvious to me than the way people of different ethnicities but similar racial stock would stick together. Your Japanese and Spaniard would part ways the minute better racial company came along.
If it's the past, it certainly seems to be a living past.
I was calling it a vestige of the past in terms of theoretical outlook. There's every reason to believe it could be dropped and replaced with an outlook more attuned to the realities of the times we live in. You've made it very clear that you don't want it dropped. That's fine. I'm certainly under no illusions that it will be dropped without meeting stern resistance.
"You have the wrong image in your mind."
I was thinking of the Shilka.
ZSU-23-4 4 × 23mm cannons. 970m/s
Vs.
2 cm Flakvierling 38 4 x 20mm cannons. 900m/s
Anonymous said...
Anonymous:"With whites at less than 8% of the World's population, a war between white nations would be an incredibly stupid act nowadays."
A statement that assumes that White people in , say, Russia feel that they have something in common with White people in ,say, Spain.They don't.
One of the most insightful comments I have read here, followed up by one that makes Sheila Jackson Lee seem erudite.
other than perhaps trying to show off how righteous a liberal you are.
I saw a couple of classic examples of this in Thailand. There was this black guy from France at the gym I worked out at as well as a number of white Frenchmen. This was a few months after the famous riots in France. I bet that black guy had never been showered with so much French love in his life. There was a middle-aged, textbook pompous Frenchman who used to make great shows of his racial benevolence every time he'd see this black guy. The funniest thing was the black guy's cool reaction to it all, probably straining to keep his eyes from rolling.
I saw another example of it with an American white meeting an American black at the same gym. The white guy was very enthusiastic about meeting a "fellow American," whereas the black guy's reaction was almost rude "yeah, yeah..." kind of response.
On the other hand, I met an elderly white S. African at that gym too. When he noticed I was very receptive to the racial hints he dropped you should have heard him unload about blacks in SA. No mealy-mouthed, pants-pissing liberal there.
My sources indicate that 1/2 of the downed IL 2 Sturmovik were victims to 20-40mm cannon and to a lesser extent 88mm AAA...
Reputable Soviet and Wehrmacht records show that such weapons were devastating to the Soviet ground attack bombers.
"Anonymous said...
Mr. Anon:"I've never met a Russian who did so. You must be thinking about Germans."
You must know very few Russians; critiquing America for her treatment of Blacks has a venerable tradition in Russia, going all the way back to Tsarist times ("You Americans talk of serfdom; look at your Black slaves. In Russia, Pushkin was a great writer; in America, he would be lynched," etc)."
That betrays absolutely no sympathy with blacks - that was only a means of one-up-man-ship.
"In linguistic terms, so are the Gypsies. What does that mean? In real world terms?
It certainly does not mean that the Russians feel "cousinly" towards the Gypsies."
That's why I said ethno-linguistic. Europeans, ethnically, have little in common with gypsies. And it shows, doesn't it? And those Russians, often despite sharing a country with gypsies, probably don't like them much.
"Oh, I'm very interested in HBD; I just don't see much prospect for it being the foundation of a nation's foreign policy any time soon."
Not with the nations we have now. We may have very different nations in due time.
Did not the dim Senator from Chicago base his Senate career around decommissioning Ukrainian nuclear warheads?
Mr Anon:"That betrays absolutely no sympathy with blacks - that was only a means of one-up-man-ship."
Expressions of sympathy for the downtrodden in another country are always games of one-upmanship. And the Russians have used it against the USA since Tarist times.
Mr Anon:"That's why I said ethno-linguistic. Europeans, ethnically, have little in common with gypsies. And it shows, doesn't it? And those Russians, often despite sharing a country with gypsies, probably don't like them much."
And yet, the Germans during WW2 showed very little "ethnic" solidarity with the Eastern Slavs (cf Generalplan Ost).
Mr Anon:"Not with the nations we have now. We may have very different nations in due time."
And we might also see Western elites convert en masse to Christian Fundamentalism. It's possible, but it is extremely unlikely.
Anoinymous:"Other than determining election results (race is the number one factor that has won the last few elections in the USA).
Deciding who gets special treatment in higher education entries and scholarships.
Massive relocation of taxpayer money to certain race groups."
And note how these "race groups" are not defined by any kind of biological logic. Blacks with 75% White ancestry are counted as fully Black. White Cubans are treated as though they were Mestizos. No one is using race in a scientific fashion. It's all contingent in character.
Anonymous;'Nice try, but all very questionable. The first one a Spaniard and Japanese what do they have in common, other than both being strangers in a strange place."
Based on my travel experiences, a feeling of being a stranger in a strange place produces a strong feeling of kinship.
Anonymous:" The second one, I would probably want to make friends a native in any of those places (even Mogadishu) than a black American."
You are a foreigner and don't speak the language. You will definitely gravitate towards a fellow countryman.
Anonymous:" The third one, the only thing they have in common is that they speak the same language, but then again so does a black from Ghana and white from New Zealand,"
Again, you must not travel much. When you are in place and do not speak the language, you will form bonds with someone who does speak your language. Trapped in downtown Baghdad, a Mexican Mestizo and a Spaniard will have a hell of a lot in common.
Based on my travel experiences, a feeling of being a stranger in a strange place produces a strong feeling of kinship.
"Kinship." Rofl. I can only hope English isn't your first language.
Expressions of sympathy for the downtrodden in another country are always games of one-upmanship. And the Russians have used it against the USA since Tarist times.
My guess is that Russian elites simply didn't care, but when they were lectured by Americans about the evils of serfdom, they just had to retort. And using slavery and later simply Jim Crow or whatever (after both slavery and serfdom were abolished, but well-meaning American travelers kept lecturing them about the evils of their autocratic system) was an easy way out.
"No one is using race in a scientific fashion. It's all contingent in character."
No white has ever been given affirmative action because of his character, no matter how black he tries to act, and there are many that do.
"Anonymous said...
And we might also see Western elites convert en masse to Christian Fundamentalism. It's possible, but it is extremely unlikely."
Actually, I think the prospect of new nations is quite likely, given that this nation seems very unlikely to last.
Your glib assertions do not strike me as disinterested commentary. I think you are just trying to discourage whites from taking any actions which might actually be useful in the defence of their interests.
"Mr. Prime Minister there is only one important question facing us, and that is the question whether the White race will survive"
Leonid Brezhnev to James Callahan.
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