(That’s nice I suppose, but can soldiers process paperwork?)

The army is very good at paperwork, they have an entire unit for paperwork

They did it in Afghanistan, they are far more motivated than the average civil servant, unless they are the RAF ;-)

Scotland can have whatever military set up it democratically decides. the starting point is 9% of the UK assets. Now on a straight 9% split then scotland could have offered 9% of the support Johhnson has done.

My preference is for a demilitariszed iScotland not acting outside its boarders.

Possibilities are infinite. choices we make puts the limits on. We can chose any path we want from a US style path to a costa rica type path

Except you can’t salami slice capabilities, you have to pick. You just sew whatever suits the point you want to make regardless of the contradictions

9% or demilitarised, flip flop

Old but still valid mostly on their doctrine

2. He tries to occupy the whole country

He imposes a puppet regime as in Belarus, problem is that the Ukrainians are so united now it will never stand

so why would iScotland not be able to do that? 9% of it obviously

You can’t provide resources you don’t have. What defence capabilities will your paradigm for iS as a small neutral demilitarised country have?

You seem to have Schrödinger’s armed forces

Yes – 9% of those subs belongs to Scotland. Of course the value would be a part of the negotiations same as any other joint asset

If you are counting assets you need to count liabilities as well, so that is 9%of the decommissioning as well

Precisely what has Johnson done that an independent scotland could not have done?

Large scale supply of AT missiles (short and medium range) and training, supply and training on MANPADS, massive ISTAR resources, positioning of troops in vulnerable NATO countries from the top of my head, I’m sure there is lots more.

Big and daft – many of us want no part of NATO, want to be a neutral / demilitarized country.

A fine ambition, I wish the whole world could be, but you know, Putin etc

Many of us have no wish to go parading around the world pretending to be billy big baws

I would say we are the opposite, the lack of ability to parade around like Billy Big Bawes is what is getting everyone excited. I think the Ukrainian people want to be friends with a Billy to get help throwing out Vlad hence their despair at the lack of action

In a similar crisis would Sturgeon be on TV saying she’s going to do something or insisting others do it. As a neutral country demilitarised what help would iS be able to give? Would there be any concerns about how a key member of NATO was reduced in capabilities etc etc

it’s all so bloody unecessary.

Which is the great sadness, the Ukrainians would probably have given up Crimea and the bugs of D and L they don’t control just to stop the killing eventually. Now it’s an existential fight and so many will die on both sides for one man’s vanity

Why doesn’t the UK government have to produce proof that maintaining the Union would be beneficial for the people in Scotland?

Let’s pick a current one, it’s maintains NATO’s strength

Why?

Firstly there is no guarantee that iS will apply to join NATO and if it did the non-nuclear policy of the SNP is incompatible with membership.
The SNP defence plans for iS have inadequate resources for territorial waters and airspace, are rUK jets expected to scramble everytime the Russians test the airspace? What anti-submarine capabilities do the SNP propose? Etc etc

The UK occupies a strategic position and by it’s size and investment a strategic capability that the smaller members of NATO are net beneficiaries of. Ireland just freeloads in the knowledge that it’s geography means the UK does the work or it can rely on fishermen to try and disrupt Russian Martine military training

The SNP proposal is to make up for this by providing the field hospitals for the dead and injuried casualties of other NATO members https://www.thenational.scot/news/19762944.snp-mps-call-independent-scotland-world-leader-military-medicine/

Or iS may stay out of NATO after diminishing one of its key members
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/independent-scotland-should-not-join-26397712

But don’t worry about the Russian mapping of Aberdeen and Dundee

Military maps show how the German and Russian armies knew all about Aberdeen

Remember to stay “civic” when you tell me I’m wrong

*whether that means full EU membership, EFTA membership, or some other arrangement

Buy land near Gretna, they have to put those lorry parks somewhere….

Not for the first time on this thread either. There’s a persistent pattern from one or two posters of deliberately seeking to misrepresent this as motivated by an ‘anti-English’ attitude which, for the most part, it quite clearly isn’t.

I just love all the posts after this that are just so, “civic”

This is one of the very reasons why conscription/national service not existing is a good thing in the UK. Like it or not a military needs to be volunteers, not pressed-men.

The challenge to this is the Ukrainian law that prevents men of fighting age leave. It’s a brave thing to do in a world where typically they are the ones who flee the furthest fastest. Personally I’m supportive of the decision but plenty of people on here aren’t with their “cannon fodder” rants.

“The conscripts are just following orders”. I’m sure that line has been trotted out before somewhere. And like last time they aren’t innocents caught up in the middle while the bigger boys commit all the atrocities.

I don’t care if it makes a bad person, but there’s a little pang of delight when I see a T72 or T80 brew up, or a BMP or BTR obliterated.

**** them.

As with most things the reality it will be a spectrum from conscripts lied to, to essentially nutters who will be happy committing war crimes.

Cheering the death of even nasty people isn’t a good look but is understandable. I far rather they just went home and then let The Haig sort them out

Why doesn’t the UK government have to produce proof that maintaining the Union would be beneficial for the people in Scotland?

I believe they have a Scot working on something, the man brought up in Aberdeen, the one that Scots treat like Voldemort because they don’t say his name

wonder why it’s taken this long to be investigated properly,

Because Bercow as speaker was ultimately at the top of any investigation until they changed to the independent system

The Priti Patel investigation was done by the civil service iirc

They look like us, blond haired, blue eyed’. Etcetera etcetera.

Are you conflating MSM with social media?

There probably has been the odd ill thought out piece but it’s not the main strand

There’s also a few million Britain’s who don’t conform to the ‘look like us’ stereotype. I wonder how they feel when they are watching the news?

Who is us?

How do they feel? Probably worried that it’s going to go nuclear and what the price of petrol, heating and food is going to get to nevermind their job security

And I also wonder how they would feel if they strolled on here.

Probably wondering what tyres for bomb debris?

If you think this place is the problem then you need to step back from the internet

I don’t think there’s any competition between a 29 and 27.5 front end, I can’t think of a situation where a 27.5 is better except if you’re attempting to do 50to01 style spinny jibs, though I save that kind of stuff for the bmx/dj.

29 versus 27.5 rear, I’m a hair under 5 10 with decently long legs, but I’m a manny, whippy rider, it’s not necessarily steep where I run out of space, it’s when I’m throwing the bike around and hucking to bottom out.

Can anyone translate for me please?

Yes I’m old

I get that some thought it not relevant, however I think that how this is viewed beyond the borders of Europe is relevant, at least as relevant as the pages and pages war porn and armchair generalship. A point no one has engaged with.

Prejudices exist outside Europe, skin colour or ethnicity isn’t a barrier to having prejudice. The core point that Europe should be better and it’s bound to have impact in terms of how some see us is still important. We can and should be better than this and hopefully will be in the near future.

that historically Russian military doctrine is very different- it’s very much about flooding the battlefield with cheaply equipped and poorly trained units, with the knowledge that victory will come at the cost of high casualties.

It was a lot more nuanced than that, it relied on massive artillery barrages, high mobility, deployments of key engineering kit forward, air superiority. Essentially what was needed to invade western Europe. If you look at the detailed military mapping of the UK it’s fantastic for military use for the old MRR, soft ground shown, bridge weights,road constrictions, industrial warehousing etc etc

There were massive flaws in the implementation, radios and command and control always an issue, they don’t all speak the same language, kit issues and most of all corruption eating it from the inside out

I think that is wishful thinking, like I say most vehicles are at one side, it’s a 2 way road not a single track lane and they’ll have driven, what? A couple hundred km at most from their bases in belarus? I doubt they’ll have used that much fuel, and even if they had, it doesn’t take that long to drive down a few tankers.

Military trucks aren’t fuel efficient, the engines will be running to keep the crews warm and tires inflated, refueling quickly is done by the vehicles traveling past the tanker not the tanker going to them, then there is the food, water, ammunition

It’s all friction, they have tipped past being an effective force and are now a liability

In the south they were able to keep moving, hence the different fortunes

‘What would Singletrackworld do?’

Go and stand with them in the other queue

The situation is crappy, the news report I saw filmed far right polish gangs chasing non white immigrants around the town. The Ukrainian National Guard has a unit of nazi white supremacists. I can also guarantee that there are plenty of people of both nationalities outraged by it and doing something to help

You aren’t going to fix a issue like this overnight in a foreign country whilst they are at war or taking thousands of refugees.

If we could encourage a mass surrender that would help a lot.

The issue is providing some form of asylum is fine for the soldier but would leave the family open to awful sanctions by the Russian state

The thing that will help most is when they do surrender treat them well and make sure they are kept away from those who would take the opportunity to get revenge. Surrendering is a lot easier if you know you are going to be treated well. If you think you are doomed regardless then it’s fight on and commit awful atrocities until they get you

discussing with some mates tonight the weight of responsibility the serving types in charge of those young men and women must feel; one thing making the right calls to keep your well trained and motivated troops alive, completely different when they’re civilians with weapons.

Which clearly the Ukrainians would feel and why the “cannon fodder” line is bollox.

Personally I’d be giving some of them a concentrated battlefield first aid course and use them as medics and stretcher bearers. Probably more dangerous to them individually but also likely to save lives overall. But we don’t know how it’s being organised, the Ukrainians are evolving what they are doing and aren’t daft.

What have I missed?

Petrol at £2 a litre, well in a week maybe

Kin cannon fodder, mercenary bastard leaders on both sides.

Nope, one lunatic, one desperate

They won’t be dumped like leaderless sheep and told to advance to be machine gunned. They’ll be attached to people who know what they are doing and be given the crap/dull jobs like guarding, fetching, carrying etc. The risk from shelling isn’t much different to the civilian one and they be fed and watered. They won’t want them on the frontline in real action straight away as they’ll be a liability and as likely to shoot someone on their own side by mistake as shoot a Russian.

If they were using them as cannon fodder the news would be getting out, the Ukrainians still have their phones.

I think the sanctions mean the tipping point will be earlier, in a month Putin probably won’t be around

Borrow a scooter and motopace him

. I don’t know how deep the storehouses are, or how long they can keep throwing things at the front line.

Probably not that deep due to corruption

The dates on the ration packs might get even older

Does it mean my old Carver 96er is now on trend?

I do think if you had resources, you at present would be going after the artillery and rocket launchers, not a dysfunctional supply convoy.

And the AA resources

Of which at least £100m has been abandoned

It might be bait.

I doubt it

It is similar to market garden except that had an exceptional amount of planning but the principles of a single road etc still stand, everything is in the wrong place and as soon as they stop moving they suck resources. Morale plummets with no information, food or fuel, they are degrading every day

The Ukrainians around Donetsk and Luhansk appear to have been left largely alone so this could be why, and they are generally regarded as the best defended areas.

Nope, lots of hard fighting there. Ukraine’s best troops are there but they losing kit

It is quite well protected by AA, presumably infantry either side to the range of handheld AT and the whole thing is outside artillery range.

The AA still needs fuel and rations and to be able to move

Javelin is handheld, range 2km ish, covering 80km (both sides) to upto 2km out will soak up any infantry which they are already short of

The biggest concept that needs to be understood is that of “friction”, the Russians in the north are experiencing that

As has been pointed out previously, if the convoy is so vulnerable, why is it still there, and not been destroyed?

We don’t know what damage has been done, we don’t know if they still have fuel and rations, we don’t know how much of it can still move

You don’t have to blow up every truck

In some ways keeping them at some state of working means they further drain any new logistics for fuel and rations etc

The mud is only going to get worse, the Russians could end up abandoning it and walking home

she doesnt hold the core values of the company

It could be an old fashioned personality conflict but the phraseology is wrong

It could be she has a protected characteristic that someone doesn’t like

It could be that she has tripped over someone else’s protected characteristic

I’d suggest she checks her social media presence for something that could have given offence, even seemingly innocuous stuff can be a trigger if someone is looking for it

Update to say thanks to binman and timba. Loo now has eco dual flush, and potentially dodgy float valve replaced with a new quick fill one.

Is that a flapper instead of a siphon? You will waste more water when it leaks than you ever would with a siphon

Azov Battalion has a political wing which seeks to eradicate non-whites and those with ‘sexual perversions’.

There is plenty of far more unpleasant stuff associated with the Azov unit out there

Most of Europe has some form of far right nutter group (Polish group chasing non-white refugees etc), the nuances of it in the Ukrainian context are bound to be complex. However it shouldn’t distract from the core issue of getting the Russians out of Ukraine, once peace comes then the Ukrainian President who is Jewish after all will have far more political clout to tackle the problem.

There are some interesting threads on the mobility issues for the Russians. It looks like they haven’t been maintaining their vehicle fleet, they also use cheap Chinese/ Belarusian tyres, what’s happening is the side walls degrade and fail when run at low pressure. Why is low pressure important? Grip off road. So essentially the fleet can’t go off road (hence the traffic jam) and the limited advances.

This then gets worse, Ukraine has a famous’mud season’ where the ground conditions get very poor in spring and autumn. We are heading into that now.

I can see the Russians getting pushed back considerably on this basis, being tied to roads is a disaster for them, they don’t have air superiority and the range of the mlrs systems is limited

It’s still going to be costly for the Ukrainians but I’m thinking the corruption endemic in the Russian army has essentially gutted the ability to fight

It’s the old nursery rhyme, for the the want of a horseshoe nail…..

To balance that out, obviously, there is Corbs, who we are told is a historically centre-left politician 🙂

Tireless campaigner for peace as well

As you dig trails I would go for a limited liability community interest company, it’s also a more established setup for grant applications etc, some running costs but not significant.

I know it would be short lived due to Russian air superiority, but the convoy seems to have been relatively unimpeded so far

You don’t have to destroy it in one go, you can hit it from 2km away with javelin and run, hit it with javelin from 2km away and run etc every attack causes delay, demoralises etc

We also don’t know what is happening on the ground, (neither do the Russians) there are a lot of territorial defence units operating semi independently

Russian air superiority is transient, they don’t command the skies, they can’t fly without risk