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RhombusHatesYou

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China doesn't make tanks fast enough to replace them at the rate Russia is losing them
There's little chance that China would sell their current frontline armour to Russia... They'd look at how much Russian armour has been lost in supremely recoverable condition and go "do we really want the Russians leaving our best kit sitting around for the Ukrainians to grab and sell off to Western interests to analyse the shit out of? Yeah probably not."
 
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RhombusHatesYou

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Leaving you with UXB and mines in the same area, plus lots of bits of metal for false positives for metal detecting.
According to most of the combat engineers I've known minefields, like any other obstacle, can cleared with the application of enough bangalore torpedoes (or, I guess, their contemporary equivalent).
 

Thaluikhain

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According to most of the combat engineers I've known minefields, like any other obstacle, can cleared with the application of enough bangalore torpedoes (or, I guess, their contemporary equivalent).
I dunno if it's still in used, but in the 80s, the UK Royal Engineers had a giant hose full of explosives which they'd use a cluster of rockets to stretch into a minefield and blast a clear path through, which was called a Giant Viper.
 

Terminal Blue

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Anyway, Putin has a large number of awful views and the way he runs Russia is objectively just a lot worse than the entire time it was a Soviet republic.
You know what, it's about 200 pages too late, but I'll take it.

Your refusal to accept that NATO enlargement is a massive provocation given that NATO is de facto a tool of US imperialism and the US and its cronies have been involved in an egregious amount of military and other kinds of aggression all around the world, all of which correctly alarms that world, is not a good reason for you to think that those who disagree with you love Russian nationalism or whatever other bullshit you want to invent.
How is NATO an effective tool of US Imperialism? How does it give the US any more power than it already had?

You know, the member states of NATO can leave. They can leave at any time. There's a clause in the treaty specifically allowing them to do so. That's not how an empire works.

If I had to summarize the geopolitical position of NATO, it would not be US Imperialism, it would be the status quo. NATO is a group of countries who have decided that they all benefit from the current geopolitical situation, and don't want their position within the current world order to be upset by other countries wanting to change things. It's not a tool of US Imperialism and it doesn't need to be. The status quo disproportionately works in the interests of the US, and thus the US has an enormous interest in preserving the status quo, as it turns out do many, many other countries.

NATO expansion is the entire point of the organization, indeed it's kind of the point of all defence alliances. The point is to amass such a concentration of military force that noone will risk attacking any member of that alliance, and thus the status quo is preserved. The more countries join NATO, the stronger that collective military force becomes and the more effective the deterrent becomes.

If you want to know why NATO expansion is a thing, just ask an incredibly easy question. If Ukraine had joined NATO earlier, would any of this have happened? The answer is no. If the choice you are given is "commit to never joining this defence alliance or we will invade you", then the rational response is not to agree and to accept that you can be coerced into doing whatever said foreign government wants by the threat of military reprisals because that is a renunciation of sovereignty. The rational response is to join the defense alliance and no longer be susceptible to that kind of coercion, because even if you benefit less than someone else, you still benefit.

I'm not pro-NATO by any stretch of the imagination. Frankly, I think it's kind of weird to be partisan about defense alliances, since they're essentially just alliances of convenience. But sure, for those of us who have problems with the status quo I can see how there might be some degree of political antipathy towards an organization whose function is preserving the status quo. But here's another question. What's the alternative? Without NATO, how do countries like Ukraine and the Baltic states protect their independence? How do they resist military coercion or actual, old school Imperialism? How do we avoid a geopolitical order in which the strong prey on the weak with impunity? What force prevents that from happening?

Most of the countries that ban cluster munitions are the same ones that also ban the use of landmines and for the exact same reasons... and to the best of my knowledge the USA, Ukraine and Russia aren't signatories to either agreement banning those weapons.
There's a distinction between anti-personnel and anti-tank mines. Ukraine, for example, has stockpiles of anti-personnel mines but officially denies and has legally committed to not using thems. Anti-tank mines are less of a problem in international law because they're much less hazardous to civilians. They're still potentially dangerous, and someone could still drive a tractor over one and get killed that way, but any warzone is going to have some unexploded munitions which have to be cleared. The problem is that said clearing has to be done by people, and anti-personnel mines and cluster submunitions are particularly hazardous to people.
 
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RhombusHatesYou

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Anti-tank mines are less of a problem in international law because they're much less hazardous to civilians.
A combat engineer I knew told me an interesting tidbit about that... so apparently under international law it's illegal to lay an AP mine under an AT mine with the intention of effectively turning the AT mine into a massive Fuck You to any poor bastard who steps on it. Fair enough and all... However, it's legal(-ish) to do so if your intention as a security measure to stop people stealing your AT mines... but all that pre-supposes that you're still laying in your minefields the old school way and not just using artillery to do it.
 
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Hades

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Anyway, Putin has a large number of awful views and the way he runs Russia is objectively just a lot worse than the entire time it was a Soviet republic. That doesn't make him wrong about NATO enlargement and encroachment nor about the 2014 coup in Ukraine. And he's far from the only one who highlighted that issue. Plenty of people have, from a lot of different places including people in the US diplomacy, intelligence, and defense establishments, famous journalists and whistleblowers, and so on. Your refusal to accept that NATO enlargement is a massive provocation given that NATO is de facto a tool of US imperialism and the US and its cronies have been involved in an egregious amount of military and other kinds of aggression all around the world, all of which correctly alarms that world, is not a good reason for you to think that those who disagree with you love Russian nationalism or whatever other bullshit you want to invent.
Its kinda hard to accept independent countries being independent countries as a provocation to Russia without condeding that Russia has some inherent right to dominate, puppeteer or outright own their neighbors. And thus we can't accept it, because that would be complete nonsense. Its up to Ukraine to decide with who'm they sign trade deals, its up to Europe to decide whether to accept trading with Ukraine, and if Russia response to this with sabotage and violence towards Ukraine then its up to Ukraine to seek allies, and up to the allies whether or not they want to ally with Ukraine.

At no step in this process, not a single step is Russia a factor. Its absolutely none of their business and their insistence that they alone should decide Ukraine's fate just highlight why Ukraine so desperately seeks protection.

I get that Ukraine being in NATO is an obstacle to Russia enacting violence towards Ukraine but the logical way around that is for Russia to just stay within their own border and just try to be a decent neighbor for once, rather than the violent, imperialistic, parasitic entity it has always been to its neighbors, and up to this day insists on being.
 

Thaluikhain

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I get that Ukraine being in NATO is an obstacle to Russia enacting violence towards Ukraine but the logical way around that is for Russia to just stay within their own border and just try to be a decent neighbor for once, rather than the violent, imperialistic, parasitic entity it has always been to its neighbors, and up to this day insists on being.
Or start it's own treaty group that other countries want to be part of.
 

Ag3ma

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If you want to know why NATO expansion is a thing, just ask an incredibly easy question. If Ukraine had joined NATO earlier, would any of this have happened? The answer is no. If the choice you are given is "commit to never joining this defence alliance or we will invade you", then the rational response is not to agree and to accept that you can be coerced into doing whatever said foreign government wants by the threat of military reprisals because that is a renunciation of sovereignty. The rational response is to join the defense alliance and no longer be susceptible to that kind of coercion, because even if you benefit less than someone else, you still benefit.
Exactly.

The Eastern European countries were clamouring to join NATO in large part because they remembered all too well the heavy hand of Soviet control (think Hungary and Czechslovakia), and wanted to make sure it - or the Russian successor state - would not be able to do that again.

Its kinda hard to accept independent countries being independent countries as a provocation to Russia without condeding that Russia has some inherent right to dominate, puppeteer or outright own their neighbors.
And in the mind of a certain type of leftist, Russia effectively does have that right.

Technically, they deplore Russia's brutal imperialism. But they also think it's not the West's right to stymie, oppose, or resist them doing so because that's also imperialism. Moral sanctity of no dirt on our hands. Even at the expense of authoritarian regimes washing their hands in the blood of their neighbours, which can be waved away as "not our business", regetted with a sigh, and discussed in hundreds of utterly impotent, ideologically correct, hand-wringing essays on socialist websites. So the end result is passivity in the face of Russia's brutal imperialism or, as has been demonstrated to us in this thread, de facto support for it.
 
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Silvanus

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Or start it's own treaty group that other countries want to be part of.
It sort of has this, in the form of the CIS, which has a defence coordination agreement in its charter.

Russia's actions have significantly weakened the CIS of course, by driving Georgia and Ukraine to withdraw (following Russia's invasions). Moldova is also currently in the process of withdrawing too, after several Russian threats to attack it. A defence agreement is worthless to a country if the primary threat to their sovereignty comes from inside it.
 

Dalisclock

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They could use drone tanks.
Sure they could and I'm sure they are. Though I'd argue they continue to used crewed tanks for a reason and that's because Drone tanks, at least at this point in time, aren't capable of carrying a gun big enough to be useful on the battlefield or have maintenance requirements that would be problematic for Russia to support at this time, not to mention likely being more expensive then their crewed counterpart for the same capability.
 
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EvilRoy

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Guess I'll take a break from just waiting for you people to realize I'm correct.
I legitimately thought you had stopped posting because you were embarrassed you had been spending so much time talking up Wagner and Russia while excusing away their issues only for Wagner to attempt a coup.

Asking an honest question - if your issue really is that NATO is being a bully by allowing states adjacent to Russia to consider joining, why have you spent so much time trying to convince everyone that Ukraine is this evil land where naziism abounds and good justice loving government leaders get illegally voted out by wicked parliament members? What does any of that matter in the face of the argument that NATO was tweaking Russia's nose and this is the end result?

To me, it seems like you are trying really hard to make Ukraine the bad guy and Russia the good guy. But you admit yourself, Russia isn't a very good guy. It certainly isn't lead by a good guy, and the people fighting for it aren't good guys. So you're resorting to this weird demonization of a country that is currently being invaded and ravaged to, what? Make yourself feel better about being glad Russia is resisting NATO? How about you just drop this Ukraine = Evil nonsense and just argue that this is all NATO's fault. I don't think its a particularly good argument, but at least it doesn't require you to actively try to demonize people who are in the middle of having their civilian infrastructure bombed to hell while Russians drink kvass in their very safe homes.
 

RhombusHatesYou

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I dunno if it's still in used, but in the 80s, the UK Royal Engineers had a giant hose full of explosives which they'd use a cluster of rockets to stretch into a minefield and blast a clear path through, which was called a Giant Viper.
Yep, lot of modern mine clearance systems use the same concept - link a bunch of explosives together in a line/chain and use a rocket to move one end out into (or over) the minefield then detonate the line of explosives to clear a lane. Simple, relatively fast, and generally less risky than other methods. That being said, apparently any form of mine clearance isn't something you want to attempt under fire if you help it but I think that holds for most activities.
 

Dalisclock

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So... most things.

Someone had to say it.
I mean, Russia allegedly has 10 or so T-14 Armatas somewhere and we haven't seen hide nor hair of any of those in the last year or so, at least outside of prepared video releases. I suspect drone tanks would be even more of a reach for Russia to field because now they have to deal with complex electronics that probably desperately need for their aircraft and missiles due to Sanctions.
 

RhombusHatesYou

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I mean, Russia allegedly has 10 or so T-14 Armatas somewhere and we haven't seen hide nor hair of any of those in the last year or so, at least outside of prepared video releases. I suspect drone tanks would be even more of a reach for Russia to field because now they have to deal with complex electronics that probably desperately need for their aircraft and missiles due to Sanctions.
Modern tanks of any flavour are high maintenance at the best of times and I don't think the Russian arm is having the best of times at the moment.
 
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Ag3ma

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I mean, Russia allegedly has 10 or so T-14 Armatas somewhere and we haven't seen hide nor hair of any of those in the last year or so, at least outside of prepared video releases. I suspect drone tanks would be even more of a reach for Russia to field because now they have to deal with complex electronics that probably desperately need for their aircraft and missiles due to Sanctions.
There were Russian news reports a few months ago that they are being used to fire on Ukrainian positions - effectively, sort of artillery. This will likely just be more a sort of combat testing or just propaganda value, I don't think we'll see them play any role in direct combat any time soon. There's obviously a problem with them, and / or Russia cannot mass produce them - they are not officially approved for service.

Given all the production problems and delays and uncertainty about their capability, potentially the military don't even want to use them. I don't think I'd want to be the commander handed them in case an operation went wrong and they performed poorly or - worst case scenario - one was captured.
 
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Terminal Blue

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I mean, Russia allegedly has 10 or so T-14 Armatas somewhere and we haven't seen hide nor hair of any of those in the last year or so, at least outside of prepared video releases.
Spoiler: it's because they don't work.

I mean, they can drive down the road during a parade or relatively slowly along flat dirt roads while a propaganda crew shoots at low angles. They can spin the turrets around constantly in a way that unfortunately doesn't hide the visible wobble of the poorly stabilized gun but does make it look like they could potentially pivot the design into a helicopter when it all inevitably goes south.

Earlier, I described the T34 as very indicative of the Stalinist regime that built it. The design looks great on paper, but sucked in reality because in reality tanks need a human crew in order to work, and the T34 seems to have been designed on the basis that the human crew were an annoyance at best and should be considered expendable. Meanwhile the actual build quality was horrendous because everyone involved was terrified of falling behind on production targets and ending up in a gulag. But, you know, it worked. T34s could and did fight in an actual war, and while they weren't very good they were at ;east capable of doing that.

I think you could easily make the same point about the T14 being indicative of Putin's Russia. The T14 is badly designed because all the engineers realized they could earn more overseas and left. It's full of features that don't make sense but do sound really cool and advanced to the average Russian on the street if you don't really think about how they would work in practice. Most of the actually high tech systems can't be built because they rely on western components, and those that can be built either provably don't work or are already obsolete because the T14 seems to have an approach to development deadlines that would make Chris Roberts jizz his pants. To top it all off, it's clearly not finished. It may never be finished because a lot of the development budget was clearly stolen. If that isn't an efficient summation of the state of modern Russia, I don't know what is.

The difference is, again, the T34 at least worked. They got it off the drawing board and into a state where it could and did fight, and over time they even fixed some of the problems. The T14 very clearly cannot do the same, or it would be.

I'm not really into tanks (although they were a bit of a special interest for me as a kid) but even I have to admit that the Panther KF51 looks extremely cool. It's what every kid imagined a cool science fiction tank would look like back in the 90s. Does it need to exist? No. There is nothing out there yet which would confer such an advantage that you'd need some kind of super-advanced 4th generation tank to defeat it. It's nice to have I'm sure, but it seems like Rheinmetall built it just to flex. The Armata is Russia trying to flex and failing because at the end of the day, all those "obsolete" 3rd generation NATO tanks at least work. We can laugh at Russia sending Soviet museum pieces into Ukraine, but again, even those tanks still work. The T14 is the real joke.
 
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