Ukraine

[enmac]

2 minutes ago, MPH said:

 

Russian media claim it sank in ‘ stormy weather’

😂

[Stinkenzo]

More explosions in Kyiv

[LiberalFox]

Surely claiming your own ship blew itself up then sank in a storm is worse than just admitting it got hit by a missile? 

[Blarmy]

47 minutes ago, LiberalFox said:

Surely claiming your own ship blew itself up then sank in a storm is worse than just admitting it got hit by a missile? 

Seems to be a Russian thing. They would rather admit total incompetence than report that the enemy has achieved any kind of success. It’s weird. 

[Mike Oxlong]

1 hour ago, LiberalFox said:

Surely claiming your own ship blew itself up then sank in a storm is worse than just admitting it got hit by a missile? 

A good rule of thumb is that when the Russians give an account of something the truth lies elsewhere 

[SpacedX]

Warships are large floating pieces of national territory and pride and when one is lost, a flagship, no less, the political and symbolic message together with the military loss, is highly significant. 

 

I recall the reaction when the General Belgrano was sunk and the devastating effect it had on the Argentinian forces. I believe I'm right in saying that was the last cruiser lost in battle before the Moskva.

[thursday_next]

20 hours ago, Line-X said:

Warships are large floating pieces of national territory and pride and when one is lost, a flagship, no less, the political and symbolic message together with the military loss, is highly significant. 

 

I recall the reaction when the General Belgrano was sunk and the devastating effect it had on the Argentinian forces. I believe I'm right in saying that was the last cruiser lost in battle before the Moskva.

 

Large warships are ****ed if they go anywhere near cruise or hypersonic missiles, though. I would prefer HMS Queen Elizabeth II to only get involved in conflicts with Madagascar or Papua New Guinea because they might reasonably be expected not to have them, not cruising the South China Sea to vaguely threaten the Chinese, who could wipe out the entire battle group at the press of a button.

 

The Argentinians bottled out of using their one aircraft carrier, at precisely the time when you would have thought they most needed it, in terms of there being an actual war going on. They might as well not have had it. 

.

Big warships were fine before air power. Consider the Bismarck. The Bismarck got crippled by a torpedo hit by a rickety old bi-plane which probably cost less than £30. The Tirpitz had to move beyond the supposed air range of the Lancaster bomber, but the plucky bastards strapped extra fuel tanks on them and dropped the biggest bombs that Barnes Wallis could create on it, causing it to sink with disastrous loss of life, and all the Lancaster bombers got home safely. Thank you very much, job done, easy peasy.

 

That was in the 1940's. The weapons of the present day are considerably superior to that. The Mockba or whatever it is was meant to be the pride of the Russian fleet in terms of missile defence, but they got hit by two, fired by somebody hundreds of miles away. Somebody's going to have to invent a cloaking mechanism like in Star Trek before large warships are viable, in my view. I wish we had spent the money on three nuclear submarines rather than spend £10bn on an aircraft carrier. I mean, I know they carry aircraft, and that's got to be handy in some situations, but there are downsides as well.  

Edited 16 April 2022 by thursday_next
disastrous grammar failure

[BKLFox]

53 minutes ago, thursday_next said:

 

Large warships are ****ed if they go anywhere near cruise or hypersonic missiles, though. I would prefer HMS Queen Elizabeth II to only get involved in conflicts with Madagascar or Papua New Guinea because they might reasonably be expected not to have them, not cruising the South China Sea to vaguely threaten the Chinese, who could wipe out the entire battle group at the press of a button.

 

The Argentinians bottled out of using their one aircraft carrier, at precisely the time when you would have thought they most needed it, in terms of there being an actual war going on. They might as not well have had it. 

.

Big warships were fine before air power. Consider the Bismarck. The Bismarck got crippled by a torpedo hit by a rickety old bi-plane which probably cost less than £30. The Tirpitz had to move beyond the supposed air range of the Lancaster bomber, but the plucky bastards strapped extra fuel tanks on them and dropped the biggest bombs that Barnes Willis could create on it, causing it to sink with disastrous loss of life, and all the Lancaster bombers got home safely. Thank you very much, job done, easy peasy.

 

That was in the 1940's. The weapons of the present day are considerably superior to that. The Mockba or whatever it is was meant to be the pride of the Russian fleet in terms of missile defence, but they got hit by two, fired by somebody hundreds of miles away. Somebody's going to have to invent a cloaking mechanism like in Star Trek before large warships are viable, in my view. I wish we had spent the money on three nuclear submarines rather than spend £10bn on an aircraft carrier. I mean, I know they carry aircraft, and that's got to be handy in some situations, but there are downsides as well.  

Horses for courses I guess If it wasn’t for HMS Hermes & Invincible The Falklands would still be under Argentine rule.

 

[blabyboy]

AC's are fine as a projection if power if they are well supported in a battle group, see the American fleets. Unfortunately, we bought and paid for two AC's but forgot to get the rest of the support ships, and enough f35s to adequately populate them.

Trying to keep up with the Yanks is sure not cheap.

[BKLFox]

40 minutes ago, blabyboy said:

AC's are fine as a projection if power if they are well supported in a battle group, see the American fleets. Unfortunately, we bought and paid for two AC's but forgot to get the rest of the support ships, and enough f35s to adequately populate them.

Trying to keep up with the Yanks is sure not cheap.

When the Royal Navy is deployed as a carrier strike group they have a similar set up as the US Although we do only have the 2 ACs these are ringed by Type 23 & 45 frigates which are equipped with sea viper and sea ceptor missile systems which can cover an area of 500sq miles, engage multi targets at once and travel at over 3 times the speed of sound.

They are also supported by nuclear subs, destroyers and minesweepers.

We might be a poor relation but what we do have is pretty state of the art

[Dahnsouff]

Things I did not realise about this conflict

• The seizure of Crimea has disabled access to 75% of the Ukrainian oil fields
• Access to these gas/oil fields would have made Ukraine Europes second largest petro state, directly challenging Russia’s wealth/GDP
• Despite the nature of the war, it has, so far, achieved its aim of preventing foreign investors from unlocking Ukraines petro wealth (Both Shell and Exxon pulled out on agreements post Crimea) 

Edited 16 April 2022 by Dahnsouff

[weller54]

So Putin has threatened 'unpredicable consequences' if we keep sending weapons to Ukraine!

More nuclear threats I assume?..

So, is it time to act and just go and sort the fvcker out once and for all?

Seems he can just get away with anything he wants because of the nuclear threat?..

I say the time has come to take the initiative away from the nutcase.

[MPH]

29 minutes ago, weller54 said:

So Putin has threatened 'unpredicable consequences' if we keep sending weapons to Ukraine!

More nuclear threats I assume?..

So, is it time to act and just go and sort the fvcker out once and for all?

Seems he can just get away with anything he wants because of the nuclear threat?..

I say the time has come to take the initiative away from the nutcase.

clearest sign yet that we have already taken the initiative away from him.

[leicsmac]

3 hours ago, weller54 said:

So Putin has threatened 'unpredicable consequences' if we keep sending weapons to Ukraine!

More nuclear threats I assume?..

So, is it time to act and just go and sort the fvcker out once and for all?

Seems he can just get away with anything he wants because of the nuclear threat?..

I say the time has come to take the initiative away from the nutcase.

Depends on whether the world thinks he'll really do it.

 

Personally I don't think he would unless his rule or the sovereignty of Russia was under imminent and dire threat, eg. if he was about to lose a war to Nato forces, but at the same time it might be a good idea to take anyone who does have the power to end human civilisation (no matter how unlikely) seriously.

[marbles]

https://news.yahoo.com/russian-soldier-says-putins-troops-132136294.html

[Lionator]

12 hours ago, weller54 said:

So Putin has threatened 'unpredicable consequences' if we keep sending weapons to Ukraine!

More nuclear threats I assume?..

So, is it time to act and just go and sort the fvcker out once and for all?

Seems he can just get away with anything he wants because of the nuclear threat?..

I say the time has come to take the initiative away from the nutcase.

Doesn’t necessarily mean nuclear. He’s basically saying that weapon shipments will mean greater fighting and the war drifting on which obviously is an issue for Russia. 
 

If nuclear clashes were going to happen, the circumstances preceding them would’ve probably already happened in this case. 

[fuchsntf]

12 hours ago, weller54 said:

So Putin has threatened 'unpredicable consequences' if we keep sending weapons to Ukraine!

More nuclear threats I assume?..

So, is it time to act and just go and sort the fvcker out once and for all?

Seems he can just get away with anything he wants because of the nuclear threat?..

I say the time has come to take the initiative away from the nutcase.

Agree Said this a few weeks ago…But He also can’t afford a Nuclear response…

can’t go through life being scared of despots threatening Nuclear response…Bloody insane innit..

 

Cant stop him if he wants it has his last funeral pyre & arrangements because he’s so ill & it’s his last parade he couldn’t care!

 

[Dahnsouff]

Not sure this is true any longer, we could see a nuclear response, albeit a smaller nuke, rather than a more destructive alternative. Sure I read half of Russia’s stockpile is made up of the less destructive (yet still horrendous) smaller variants? Although saying that, it may force the hands of those thus far reticent, such as India and China, to adopt a vocal position.

[LCFCCHRIS]

Nuclear related threats aren't anything new from Russia's post soviet leaders:

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/15/russia.poland.nuclear.missiles.threat

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/01/russia-putin-missile-defence-threat

 

However they do seem to be more direct than ever now..

 

[MPH]

1 hour ago, LCFCCHRIS said:

Nuclear related threats aren't anything new from Russia's post soviet leaders:

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/15/russia.poland.nuclear.missiles.threat

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/01/russia-putin-missile-defence-threat

 

However they do seem to be more direct than ever now..

 

 

Trying their best to stay relevant on the world stage. 
 

Make no mistake this war had damaged their reputation massively. rhetoric and nuclear weapons are all they have left.  If his Army / Air Force/ Navy can’t even defeat a much smaller neighbor then that’s. Massive blow to his reputation . he’s going to try and claw his way back  to gaining international respect..

[fuchsntf]

12 hours ago, MPH said:

 

Trying their best to stay relevant on the world stage. 
 

Make no mistake this war had damaged their reputation massively. rhetoric and nuclear weapons are all they have left.  If his Army / Air Force/ Navy can’t even defeat a much smaller neighbor then that’s. Massive blow to his reputation . he’s going to try and claw his way back  to gaining international respect..

We really don’t know how long it will last, but if any Western European Politician even dreams of softening to Putin and their electorate support them….I am stopping my cancer Therapie, and telling my Kids ,it ain’t worth hanging on, I am off to kick our creators and grim reapers arse. 

[LCFCCHRIS]

10 minutes ago, fuchsntf said:

We really don’t know how long it will last, but if any Western European Politician even dreams of softening to Putin and their electorate support them….I am stopping my cancer Therapie, and telling my Kids ,it ain’t worth hanging on, I am off to kick our creators and grim reapers arse. 

Sorry to hear that mate, hope it takes effect for you. 

 

I'm suspicious of le Pen in France for this reason. Hoping Macron gets the win

[fuchsntf]

14 minutes ago, LCFCCHRIS said:

Sorry to hear that mate, hope it takes effect for you. 

 

I'm suspicious of le Pen in France for this reason. Hoping Macron gets the win

No worries, it’s been also been known on here for awhile, hence the blackhumour…

The France & French I know wouldn’t even let Le Pen go down that avenue.

Also communist France were not old USSR addicted, or same interpretation…

I have forgot the old translation….

but something like,   „Russians misused the word & reality of Communism,the French follow

its root meaning & interpetation“..

Mind you,so much shit has changed over the years

even Dulex the dog & Sunday Roast have different versions..

Edited 18 April 2022 by fuchsntf

[Mike Oxlong]

Professor Michael Clarke gives excellent analysis on his Sky News Q&A programme 

[Solihullfox]

2 hours ago, Mike Oxlong said:

Professor Michael Clarke gives excellent analysis on his Sky News Q&A programme 

A very interesting programme and get the impression that he is worried about where this war will end and how far the Russians may be prepared to go with ambition and weapons