World War III

[Pine_marten]

I don't know. If their accuracy with decent barrels is on the order of 200-300m, and with shot out barrels that goes up to maybe 1000m, that will make it difficult for them to achieve any kind of concentration of fire and will require them to expend even more ammunition, time, and barrels in order to take any terrain at all. It also would make counter-battery and interdiction fire basically impossible. So it kind of depends on what they have in mind, if anything.

They took out some of those fancy howitzers a couple days back and the ammo dumps for them too. You know not of what you speak.

 

[Pine_marten]

Biden has been selling strategic reserve oil to China.

Not to worry, the board neo libs (MIC worshipers) will figure a way to blame Putin.

 

[Handlebars]

Not to worry, the board neo libs (MIC worshipers) will figure a way to blame Putin.

And it's Trump's fault.
Actually the news didn't say he sold it . He sent it. Might have given it to them, never know with The Potato. They have some good blackmail on him.

 

[mclewis1]

I do not think you can shoot as many rounds from a pistol to actually damage it

Oh Stephan, you certainly can.
It depends on they amount of use, the type of ammunition used, how the weapon is maintained and the environment it's used in (dusty, salty, etc.), but you certainly can even with pistols wear them out or cause enough wear to seriously affect the accuracy even with only regular (and not sustained) use.

A very large number of the millions of AK-47s distributed throughout the middle east are next to useless accuracy wise out beyond a few hundred meters. But even when badly worn and poorly maintained they do obviously retain a relatively effective use at short range.

Generally though, the larger the caliber of the weapon the faster and greater the wear on the barrel. 155mm howitzers do have a very well defined lifespan, I'm just not sure if any of that information is publicly available.

 

[Handlebars]

155mm howitzers do have a very well defined lifespan, I'm just not sure if any of that information is publicly available.

About 2 weeks for Ukraine?

 

[Handlebars]

Shaking hands with a ghost is one thing, but this clapping air stuff is so so wacko ...

Surely, This Didn't Just Happen...

The Democrat party. Nothing to see here, it’s all tickety-boo, plain sailing. Oh, other than the 1 million voters who’ve deserted them in favour of the Republicans. But that can’t have anything to do

rumble.com

 

[Mulezen]

Ukraine Uses Western Weapons to Take Out Nearly a Dozen Russian Ammo Depots

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that the Western-supplied artillery was working "powerfully."

www.newsweek.com

 

[kevinmccune]

I do not think you

I do not think you can shoot as many rounds from a pistol to actually damage it

I was contemplating buying a "Ruger Super Single Six" in thirty carbine flavor one time( figured it would be almost ideal for a pistol) the Dealer I was contemplating with, had a personal pistol configured like that,He liked it so much He had to replace the barrel on it at least one time, he had fired it so much- now the reason among other attributes 30 carbine Ball ammunition was surplus dirt cheap back in the day. Yes you can wear them out, something like a 220 Swift( very fast) has limited lifetime on barrel as well because of gas erosion particularily in the "throat" area, the Germans had a long distance gun( maybe the "Gustave" or Paris gun?) the barrel wore so quick on that thing each round fired through it was basically a custom rd. due to barrel wear and erosion.

 

[kevinmccune]

"Medvedev suggested the United States hasn’t been held accountable for several bloody encounters and territorial grabs itself, and that it would do well to not look at Russia before examining its own history.
“The entire U.S. history since the times of subjugation of the native Indian population represents a series of bloody wars,”
Speaking as a third Native American, being conquered by the US was the best of fates. I like it here, now. The tribal wars endemic to pre-European culture, were nothing but barbarism. They never ended. The secret to our survival was moving somewhere the Europeans couldn't live and didn't want. West Virginia mountains are still uninhabited. Only the valleys are peopled by beefy tall Europeans (& blacks).I'm built for running after wounded deer on wet rocks. The Shawnee didn't attack us much, we didn't have anything to steal, only short weak women. Grandfather was willing to dig low coal, crawling 12 hour days, until he bought his acre of respite in the valley. Paid taxes, too. I met another native survivor at the Lewis & Clark bicentennial party. Her family lived in the swamps of Ohio, until her great Grandad took a job repairing track for a railroad during WWI when labor was short.
Putin may be terminally ill. He may not care if the world survives in 5 years or not. His starvation of 40000000 poor people by withholding grain (even Russian) vegetable oils & fertilizer shows a complete lack of responsibility.

Live pretty close to old"West by Gosh VA, Highland county VA bordering WVa has a lot of sustenance farms made from cleared ridge tops( probably as high or higher than most of WVa elevation wise,its upstream from Me and it was mostly settled by "Scotch-Irish" settlers who liked the lack of government and beautiful valleys and ridges full of bluegrass and ideal sheep country, some Germans too( they went everywhere) very many "Micks and Macs", the Worlds largest pumped storage was in Bath county( until the Chinese bring their two on line. It was rumored that a third reservoir could be constructed next to the one on the ridge top( with probably even more potential(higher full pond)
This is my opinion, I believe the "watershed would have a problem servicing another reservoir, complicated by a largish recreational lake below there( closed now due to storm damage) which is constrained by a water release agreement with the "West Rock" paper mill which has to have a certain flow of water each day to dilute its discharge into the "Jackson river" which farther downstream joins the "Cowpasture" river to form the "James" river headwaters( part of "Highland" counties runoff goes into the "James" while the other part ends up in the "Potomac" river( Heres looking at you Joe)

 

[Mulezen]

This is a persuasive overview of the current situation, at least to me https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...western-arms-zelenskiy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

 

[Pine_marten]

Ukraine Uses Western Weapons to Take Out Nearly a Dozen Russian Ammo Depots

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that the Western-supplied artillery was working "powerfully."

www.newsweek.com

Oh yeah, Newsweak!!!

 

[kevinmccune]

Why would Putin sacrifice so many of Russia's young and old People? If He would concentrate on Port treaties and spend the resources developing what Russia has so much of, this place could become a real superpower in a few years, the days of acquisition by conquest are over. The hard criminal oligarchs must go( to make room for the "decent criminal oligarchs" I can only imagine the vast quantities of raw materials She possesses.If the government was stable and and the dealings fair, investment and talent would pour in there overnight.
If Russia succeeded in conquering the "Ukraine" ( proven to be a tough nut to crack) in ten years it would be as destitute as Russia, if this was truly about the Russian People, conquest would not be an option, it seems the "Golden Bridge" or" soft retreat" option will not help in this case( they are already next to the Eastern front).
The best option for them(IMO) is to declare victory and withdraw posthaste, then the painful apologies and some reparation-We can always hope, with a promise to persucute the ones who engaged in the " War Crimes", it strikes Me as very odd because the Russian immigrants I have met seem to be nice intelligent People,one of the US presidential candidates back in the Late 20th Century( cannot recall His name to save my life) went into detail about one reason it was hard to deal with some of the Russian People( I will not give names-its historical) right now all we can do to change the Russian Zeitgeist is to hope and pray it seems.The sad thing is some Folks are going to be making money off this sad, sordid affair.

 

[Handlebars]

Why would Putin sacrifice so many of Russia's young and old People?

The answer is obvious. Ask yourself why would an American President do that, if a group decided to pack every surrounding country with biolabs and nukes aimed at America?
And you do understand that the forces being used are both local and others, and are not the war force of the armed forces - but a fraction. Right?

 

[ChezCheese:)]

From our perspective, it certainly makes no sense. It's not like the Russian people have no room or natural resources. In fact, thanks to climate change, they are getting more and more land liberated from permafrost and warmer temps in which to grow foods. So they don't actually have to invade another country to gain resources. (Of course, it would require knocking off the vodka to get the seeds planted and to harvest the crops...)

I think what we are seeing is the end of the usefulness of the imperialist brand of capitalism, based on ever-expanding consumption, the death throes of it. And we don't know what to replace it with or how to transition to a better system. We are killing the planet with consumption, to the point that pretty much everything we as a species do, hastens global warming and further fragments our populations into rival groups. We can't get together to solve or ameliorate the situation, and so continue to try our usual methods: war, resource grab, divide and conquer, denial, obfuscation, demonization of the other...

But I digress.

 

[Handlebars]

We can't get together to solve or ameliorate the situation, and so continue to try our usual methods: war, resource grab, divide and conquer, denial, obfuscation, demonization of the other...

And so you demonize your fellow forum members. It's you.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Honestly, having visited Russia more than a few times, I have to say it is hard for an American to figure the place out.

Two funny stories.

In the early 90's, after the wall came down, I had a lady friend who was from (of all places) Kharkiv and still had family there. Once a month or so she'd send a care package to her relatives still there. At the time outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg a lot of personal care items (like toothpaste and shampoo) were hard to come by and were expensive when they were available. So after a few months of this and some back-and-forth with her and her relatives, I began to think. With a bit of research I worked out that at the time there were basically no import duties on products like that (into the new nation of Ukraine) and there would be basically no business licensing or taxation for people selling such products door-to-door. And the profit margins were enormous, more than enough so that all of her relatives could earn like Americans and get very fat if they wanted to. I ran this by my lady friend, she saw the merit of the idea but was skeptical her relatives would buy it. Boy was she right. They were horrified at the very idea of selling toothpaste and shampoo. This in spite of the fact that they were unemployed or very marginally employed and were basically on the edge of starvation. After she came and went from my life I had a few other conversations with other immigrants from the old Soviet Union, and they all agreed that in particular ethnic Russians would never stoop so low as to be mere salespeople. So there went that idea.

Some years later I was traveling for several months in the Russian far east, mostly between Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. Interesting country. In early fall the rivers were full of salmon, like the rivers out here were before I was born. It was an awe-inspiring sight honestly. In a street market in Khabarovsk I bought a shopping bag full of huge salmon steaks -- the kind that would sell for $25 each at a Whole Foods -- for about $2 for the whole bag. I improvised a makeshift grill and cooked some of them, and a makeshift smokehouse and smoked the rest. The folks who were hosting me at the time were extremely impressed. It occurred to me that if Russia was a normal country like France or Canada somebody would be flying 747s full of those salmon to Los Angeles and marketing "Ussuri Salmon" the same way we market "Copper River Salmon". And when I asked about if it was possible to go fishing I came to the realization that nobody there had even thought about it. So if Russia were Canada there would be a whole network of resorts and guide services dedicated to letting people catch huge salmon. I found out later there are a small number of guides in the Petropavlosk area but nowhere near the scale that would be possible or even plausible. And Japan is nearby and there are lots of fishing enthusiasts in Japan who would pay big bucks to catch a 20kg Chinook.

So go figure. Russia is a potentially very rich country that doesn't know how to avoid being poor.

 

[Handlebars]

Honestly, having visited Russia more than a few times, I have to say it is hard for an American to figure the place out.

It occurred to me that if Russia was a normal country like France or Canada somebody would be flying 747s full of those salmon to Los Angeles and marketing "Ussuri Salmon" the same way we market "Copper River Salmon". And when I asked about if it was possible to go fishing I came to the realization that nobody there had even thought about it.

So go figure. Russia is a potentially very rich country that doesn't know how to avoid being poor.

Certainly not because of communistic government control. Nope, just a big mystery.

 

[Mulezen]

I recently read Slaught’s ‘Owls of the Eastern Ice’. It’s an account of the makings of a Ph.D dissertation on the world’s largest owl residing in Kamchatka. The depiction of Russian life there is eye opening (Alcoholism and testosterone ). 90% of Russia is European with most of the rest permafrost and unlikely to be arable as it thaws. Kamchatka’s wilderness is amazing though.

Owls of the Eastern Ice

A New York Times Notable Book of 2020Longlisted for the National Book AwardWinner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and the Minnesota Boo...

us.macmillan.com

 

[tomjasz]

Why would Putin sacrifice so many of Russia's young....

Not unlike our Viet Nam and Afghanistan?

VVAW
"Led by Gold Star Mothers (mothers of soldiers killed in war), more than 1,100 veterans marched across the Lincoln Memorial Bridge to the Arlington National Cemetery gate, just beneath the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Reverend Jackson H. Day, who had a few days earlier resigned his military chaplainship, conducted a memorial service for their fellows. He said:

Maybe there are some others here like me—who wanted desperately to believe that what we were doing was acceptable, who hung on the words of "revolutionary development" and "winning the hearts and minds of the people." We had been told that on the balance the war was a good thing and we tried to make it a good thing; all of us can tell of somebody who helped out an orphanage, or of men like one sergeant who adopted a crippled Vietnamese child; and even at My Lai the grief of one of the survivors was mixed with bewilderment as he told a reporter, "I just don't understand it ... always before, the Americans brought medicine and candy." I believe there is something in all of us that would wave a flag for the dream of an America that brings medicine and candy, but we are gathered here today, waving no flags, in the ruins of that dream. Some of you saw right away the evil of what was going on; others of us one by one, adding and re-adding the balance sheet of what was happening and what could possibly be accomplished finally saw that no goal could be so laudable, or defense so necessary, as to justify what we have visited upon the people of Indochina.[20]

The gate to the cemetery had been closed and locked upon word of their impending arrival; the Gold Star mothers placed the wreaths outside the gate and departed The march re-formed and continued to the Capitol, with Congressman Pete McCloskey joining the procession en route. McCloskey and fellow Representatives Bella Abzug, Don Edwards, Shirley Chisholm, Edmund Muskie and Ogden Reid addressed the large crowd and expressed support. VVAW members defied a Justice Department-ordered injunction against camping on the Mall and set up an installation. Later that day, the District Court of Appeals lifted the injunction. Some members visited their Congressmen to lobby against U.S. participation in the war. The VVAW presented Congress with a 16-point suggested resolution for ending the war.

 

[Mulezen]

Life has always been cheap in Russia…Peter the Great…Stalin…Putin

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/08/putin-russia-ukraine-west-battlefield/