Russia - threadbanned users in OP

The new UKraine.

I suppose Boris did compare Brexit with the situation in Ukraine, perhaps some common ground to base the amalgamation talks on.

I was at the Farnborough air show some years ago and got a close-up look at an Su-25 Frogfoot, and was shocked at the rough finish compared to western aircraft. For example fuselage panels not meeting properly and even with edges not parallel to each other i.e. a wider gap at one end that the other.

It still managed to look tough, though.

Russia went with easy and cheap to build military vehicles which can be mass produced and easy to maintain in the field much like WW2 doctrine for Western military vehicles,

They were designed and built to drive across the fulda gap unopposed because Nato would run away ,the same vehicles and designed were used in the 50's to afghanistan to the Chechen wars with the exact same outcome mobile coffins ,

The most resent design is the Terminator IFV (infantry fighting vehicle) claimed to be near unstoppable , because it can fire several rockets and comes with twin 30 mm canons when everyone uses one 30mm + canons ,it's neither perfect or unstoppable ,the same with their new armata super tank ,a few were tested on photo ops in Syria and one was already destroyed , despite spending hundreds of millions on less than ten tanks that aren't even in production,

It's all great on paper but in the real world it actually has to work and be produced to be decent

It's also possible that was an IED or anti-tank mine; they've become more prevalent lately and are often very destructive.

To your point about the design though: I've seen a guy who claimed to be a tank engineer (as in someone who built/repaired tanks) saying that a lot of the steel which seemed to be used in the Russian tanks was of terrible quality, and the welds too appeared in most cases to be of poor quality.

Another possible outcome is that reportedly experienced by British tankers in the Western Desert: crews attacked by German "88's" (link if needed) baling out after the 88's first shot that missed, because they knew the second one wouldn't.

The New York Times released a good investigation video yesterday of Russian radio intercepts from the battlefield. They have radio comms of Russian tanks in the middle of battle running out of fuel and screaming to get topped up then another of a Russian soldier who sounds on the verge of tears shouting down the radio for air support as his unit is getting pounded but the air support he desperately needs doesnt arrive.

The Russian radio systems are so rudimentary that people around the world are listening in and some people are jamming the signals with recordings of a man whistling so the soldiers in the middle of battle cannot hear each other. At one point a Ukrainian comes on to the Russian radio and is outright trolling the Russian soldiers and telling them to go home.

There is no paywall, 9 minutes long and a good watch

At a guess, I'd say you haven't seen the roll of honour in the first post.

True but the Dniper river is an excellent natural fortification; and there are two other rivers in the North which could offer a similar sort of natural barrier. I could see them aiming for something like the below potentially; I think they would have wanted Kharkiv but that's probably a bridge too far at this point.

This also means they retain control over the nuclear power plant and the Donbass area.

And as for a heavily militarised border I suspect Russia knows exactly what everyone else knows: nobody is going to be invading Russia. It just isn't going to happen. Insurgency is a different thing I suppose but since Russia couldn't give two **** about their citizens anyway it's all the one to them whether people die. In fact it might be precisely what they're hoping for: another enemy of Russia to keep people compliant.

Fair play to the UK for the financial and military aid. Hopefully their anti-air missiles will make a difference too.

I suspect much of his personal motivation is trying to remain relevant in European and World affairs in a post-Brexit world; but still, fair play.

And I'm pretty sure the general consensus is that Johnson was an unwitting or de facto Russian asset; since clearly Brexit was a way to weaken the EU and UK (a large and founding NATO nation) in one fell swoop. I don't think anyone believed he was actually taking orders from Putin or anything.

Soviet tanks were built to take small Central Asian guys not like American tanks to take big guys.

Think of it like building a F1 cockpit to take a normal F1 driver and not a fat lard ar** Nigel Mansell after returning from his year or so in the US. 😉

Soviet equipment was often rudimentary with emphasis on simplicity, reliablility, functionality, ease of maintenance.

The desires, concerns or even safety of those using the kit was often secondary. Manpower was cheap.

Remember how much of this kit dates back to Soviet era.

Then add in fact Russia has been so corrupt for most of it's post Soviet days that equipment was left fall into disrepair, new equipment was often built or ordered with major proviso that someone connected somewhere got a nice cut of the proceeds.

All going according to plan, yea right.

If normal is having your country blown to bits, infrastructure wiped out, innocent people killed....then yea I guess life is normal in Ukraine.

He only had one order ‘Get Brexit done’

On the basis that every single thing the Kremlin says is a lie, this makes Johnson a fully paid up member of the KGB

Would it possible to keep such a shock and awe response below the nuclear level though? Even if NATO was frantically informing Russian military leadeership via back channels that it had no intention of launching the nukes? If Putin took the message that the objective of this onslaught was regime change in Moscow, even if that wasn't actually the intention, wouldn't there be a very strong chance that he would press the red button?