Ukraine

alpin

Fair play to the C4 news presenter for essentially telling the Russian MP to FO after her bleeding heart story.

Yup, that’s what I was referring to earlier. Matt Frei. Born in Essen, parents Polish refugees (I think). His reporting has been outstanding and that interview highlights more clearly than anything I’ve seen, the narrative being played in Russia.

alpin

Fair play to the C4 news presenter for essentially telling the Russian MP to FO after her bleeding heart story.

Is there a link? I could do with cheering up

https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/world/story/are-ukraines-vast-natural-resources-a-real-reason-behind-russias-invasion-323894-2022-02-25

So the Russian army is struggling with keeping tyres inflated. Those looting soldiers are probably looking for latex and an Airshot.

Now look at the same Pantsir-S1 tire sidewalls after the Ukrainians tried to tow or drive it out of the mud.

The right rear tire fell apart because the rips in it were too big for the CTIS to keep aired up.

No one exercised that vehicle for 1 year

6/https://t.co/H4p7GOnerx

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) March 2, 2022

Glad I clicked on Alpin’s link now….

Waiting for a knock at the door

I always assumed anyone who had an internet connection had a copy sitting unread at the back of a hard drive somewhere.

Anyone else get quite a strange BBC Breaking story on their FB account today? Basically, “Fact Checking” a lot of images and suggesting the Ukranian team had been reusing images from other historical conflicts?

It didn’t read like a BBC written article at all.

Am I the only person thinking that the Pantsir-S1 would be great, if re-purposed into an overland explorer campervan?

It looks like a Unimog on steroids (given Putin’s appearance and behaviour that’s no surprise)

The Ukrainians use propaganda too…..

@blokeuptheroad did you ever find yourself on Foulness?

Yes.  Some very large explosive demolitions and trials on the beach working out of Shoeburyness.  It was RARDE then DERA then.  Not sure who runs it now after the split into DSTL/Qinetiq.

A dreadful bleak, wind and rain lashed wilderness in my memory.   Large explosive demolition ranges around the UK coast are all like that!  Kircudbright, Pendine sands etc.  Crap memories of being wet and cold, good memories of blowing shit up!

I’d guess you were in Shoeburyness for the Winter? I wasn’t too far away from there and don’t recall it being rain lashed wilderness. In fact I recall quite a good summer from being stationed down that way….ah to be 18 again!! Brings back memories, memories I don’t think Mrs W would like me having!!

Now Benbecula, that is cold and wet. Actually the cold wasn’t that bad if it wasn’t for the rain, but the wind and rain. It rained. A lot. Not fun.

No idea why the RAF couldn’t do live firing in Belize or Cyprus….always had to be a fairly remote Scottish island after the tourist season (warm season) had ended….

blokeuptheroad
Full Member

@blokeuptheroad did you ever find yourself on Foulness?

Yes. Some very large explosive demolitions and trials on the beach working out of Shoeburyness. It was RARDE then DERA then. Not sure who runs it now after the split into DSTL/Qinetiq.

A dreadful bleak, wind and rain lashed wilderness in my memory. Large explosive demolition ranges around the UK coast are all like that! Kircudbright, Pendine sands etc. Crap memories of being wet and cold, good memories of blowing shit up!

QinetiQ have Shoeburyness, but at least you get to enjoy Southend when up there ;o)

Same with Pendine, QQ have a few of them, Eskmeels as well, trials always seem to occur in winter of windy conditions as high season had too many tourists wandering about.

Need the Badger on the case with that S1 😀

Could explain why they have had to stick to main roads. It’s was foggy and snowing on Clive Myrie’s report from Kyiv last night. Must be pretty bleak being sat in that 40 mile convoy for day after day.

Also sounds like reserves are being brought around to the North to bolster the attacking force. But I can’t believe they will be able to attack down a single road, so may have to wait a while longer yet.

Mariupol sounds to be in an appalling state, dead and dying unable to be recovered from the streets due to incessant shelling. Separatists saying they will attack today.

Been reading some of the economic news as well, which sounds much bleaker for Moscow than the military news. Stock market remains closed, credit rating downgraded. I doubt those tyres are going to be replaced with new ones anytime soon.

Best quote so far today, ‘if you don’t schedule maintenance for your vehicles, your vehicles will schedule it for you’.

The Ukrainians use propaganda too…..

Sure, in wartime, everyone does. Ukraine is just making a far better job of it. They have images of destroyed or abandoned Russian military equipment that are clearly real. Even though it’s just a fraction of the gear that Russia deployed, it shows that Ukraine is fighting back. They also have videos of prisoners being treated humanely. Ukraine can also use pictures of stuff that Russia destroyed to show that Russia are the bad guys because Russia seems to be mostly destroying civilian infrastructure. Ukraine has constructed a powerful narrative of heroic underdogs fighting a desperate battle against a brutal enemy. It works because there’s truth at the core of it, even if there are exaggerations in there.

Russian propaganda is limited to pretending that nothing’s happening, and, even if something is happening, NATO made them do it.

No knock at the door thus far.

At around 8 minutes in….. (how do you embed the time?)

Would be great to see him react to all bullshitting MPs like that.

Speaking of ranges, I went to Kircudbright range while on hols last year. I was trying to get to the remains of the A39 Tortoise (very large prototype tank from just after the Second World War). Sadly that bit has been fenced off again due to increased usage….

It does feel like things are turning from a quick war with fast moving events to one that’s set to drag on and on for a long time. Really hoped for the Ukrainian’s sake it wouldn’t turn that way but it inevitably has.

The poster who slated the thread asking how anyone can even begin to say that they have any knowledge of the subject has hopefully learnt a lesson.

STW actually does have some qualified/ or even experts on here in about every subject you can think of!

Seconded. And it’s never who you expect it to be either!

Separatists saying they will attack today.

Are these separatists fighting for or against the UA?

timbog160
Full Member
Speaking of ranges, I went to Kircudbright range while on hols last year. I was trying to get to the remains of the A39 Tortoise (very large prototype tank from just after the Second World War). Sadly that bit has been fenced off again due to increased usage….

They’re getting a bit tighter on impact areas of ranges, as most have been used for over a century and dirty, right to roam is good, but i’d be happy to never roam around UK ranges!

If tyre degradation has been an issue for their platforms it is a sign that they weren’t really prepared to invade, anything taken out of long term of medium term storage should be turned around before sending it out, sounds like they’ve been left in a hangar, then dusted off and thrown out to units.

Russian backed separatists.

Argee yes I was happy to stick to the roads! A beautiful, windswept spot.

@reluctantjumper that’s when it may get even more delicate for NATO countries; historicallt trying to supply, train and fund an insurgency hasn’t gone too well.

It’ll probably come down to economics as others have said, who’s got the deeper pockets and the stronger will.

The beaches are fantastic at KKB when the range is cold and you’re doing a recce for ranges in the summer.

Same with Castlemartin, stunning spot. Holbeach, less so.

Usually there should be a schedule for tyre turning, running vehicles every so often. I buy a few ex Uk military vehicles and you often see evidence of this. New oils and filters in vehicles that have been stored for years etc. Some reports that Russian army is so corrupt that the funds supposed to be used for this type of stuff are just trousered. Propaganda? Maybe but feasible there is at least some truth in it.

Thread on the possible maintenance issue here:

This is a thread that will explain the implied poor Russian Army truck maintenance practices based on this photo of a Pantsir-S1 wheeled gun-missile system's right rear pair of tires below & the operational implications during the Ukrainian mud season.?

1/ pic.twitter.com/LmxW43v6gy

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) March 2, 2022

Same with Castlemartin, stunning spot.

One of my favourites – there are few better places to climb sea cliffs than Pembrokeshire.

Lets hope the Germans surprise us again after their recent military aid and defence budget increase and start to seriously address their Russian gas dependency.  Difficult to do that quickly I know with the lead times for alternatives, but a purposeful shift in that direction would be another nail in Putin’s coffin.

No expertise in this, but whilst renewables and maybe more nuclear come on line, is it feasible to ship enough liquefied gas from elsewhere for a while? That’s probably a really naive question and I’m sure the cost and logistic difficulties would be immense, but interested to know if there is any possibility.

Yeah, it may have changed but we’d have service intervals 3m, 6m, 1yr, 2yr each with increasing levels of tasks, maintenance and inspection by REME vehicle mechanics. That’s before you get to track mileage and maintenance if you’re armoured. (My unit had CVR(T) command post variants forward while, cold War legacy).

That’s on top of daily before use inspections and after use inspections. Huge amount of paperwork to keep greenfleet chugging along.

@blokeuptheroad  @wOOdster @argee

I spent 7 years as a photographer at AWE on the Island from 89-96, blowing things up never got boring.The cycle commute in an out could be fun, crawling up that bridge in a 22/28 lowest gear or happily trundling along at 30 with no real effort! On some days you’d go out and wonder what was wrong and then realise it was the fact that there was no wind, always felt strange.

@martinhutch I have heard this, never climbed but mates who do say it’s a stunning spot, I’ve only ever looked out to sea, not up from it!

Usually there should be a schedule for tyre turning, running vehicles every so often.

Yes, I had an engineering teacher at high-school who was ex-military. He said he worked in a depot refurbishing tanks and heavy equipment. Most of it was just stockpiled ready for a Warsaw Pact invasion. Even though it had barely been used, they’d strip everything down and rebuild it with brand new parts then put it back into storage. Everything was done on a strict schedule so it would be ready to fire up at a moment’s notice.

timbog160
Full Member
Usually there should be a schedule for tyre turning, running vehicles every so often. I buy a few ex Uk military vehicles and you often see evidence of this. New oils and filters in vehicles that have been stored for years etc. Some reports that Russian army is so corrupt that the funds supposed to be used for this type of stuff are just trousered. Propaganda? Maybe but feasible there is at least some truth in it.

Yeah, in the UK we do have schedules, we use inhibitors, covers, dehumidified hangars, etc, etc if it’s in for long term, same as any industry, see how many long term car storage units haven’t got similar, but it’s just another point that says Russia maybe weren’t gearing for an invasion, until it became one.

After losing a lot of time on ads-b and Bellin?cat…a possibly naive question,

Russian version of Ads-b or something else?

Russian field ambulances used to transport munitions.

A lot of effort for the Ukrainians to set up for propaganda purposes….

@argee if I recall there’s a pretty hefty maintenance and inspection program for vehicles coming out of storage?

Likewise going in. I remember having to pick some Snatches up for Iraq from Ashchurch, the date kept being put back as they had found a lot of issues.

@avdave2 we may have met.  I certainly did quite a few trials and exercises there during that period.  I mostly would have been there with 11 EOD Regiment, doing trials but also some of the big joint police/military national contingency exercises.

I remember a few ‘hangovers that would kill a civvy’ from nights on the lash in Southend!

ome reports that Russian army is so corrupt that the funds supposed to be used for this type of stuff are just trousered.

That’s what was suggested in the radio thread. Sounds as if people have budgeted for proper kit, then bought shit of eBay and pocketed the rest.

I mean it’s pretty staggering that you can listen in on troop movements with your own cheap eBay radio. It’s making them look like clowns.

Bear in mind also that all that equipment; those thousands of soldiers hundreds of airplanes and helicopters and  tanks and so are paid for with a defense budget that’s not huge amount bigger than the UK spend – about $62Billion compared to $50B, and it would be interesting to see how much of that is siphoned off by corruption.  maybe looks good on a parade…perhaps not so much otherwise.

Plus, the Russians are still fighting in Syria, so that’s all the logistics and weaponry having to go there as well as the stuff they need for Ukraine.  I don’t think they’re going to be able to keep both going at the same time.

I’m still really surprised they don’t have secure comms, also read they have really limited NVG capability which could be why they’ve elected to do major heliborne assaults during the day.

Many a lie has been sold overegging their capability for sure.

The knock on the door may not be bad news. One of our Scouts did his Masters on terrorism, which led to some tricky conversations with Pilice and then “others”, before he was invited to apply for MI5/6.

He got a fair way down the process before failing.

MoreCashThanDash
Full Member
The knock on the door may not be bad news. One of our Scouts did his Masters on terrorism, which led to some tricky conversations with Pilice and then “others”, before he was invited to apply for MI5/6.

He got a fair way down the process before failing.

Did similar, the uni tends to keep all the dark web stuff on their intranet site locked away to support coursework if required and minimise security issues, rather than having students messing about on the net!

Statement from Roman Abramovich on the sale of Chelsea

Official Chelsea Site

The sale of the Club will not be fast-tracked but will follow due process. I will not be asking for any loans to be repaid. This has never been about business nor money for me, but about pure passion for the game and Club. Moreover, I have instructed my team to set up a charitable foundation where all net proceeds from the sale will be donated. The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine. This includes providing critical funds towards the urgent and immediate needs of victims, as well as supporting the long-term work of recovery.