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"Russian Pearl Harbor"

bythoughts said:
According to this: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ian-war-hawks-demand-nuclear-retaliation.html

a swarm of Ukrainian drones sallied out of each of two parked trucks to destroy 40 Russian aircraft at Olenya in the Arctic Murmansk region and Belaya in eastern Siberia. What are your reactions?
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Ukraine continues to demonstrate that it offers an opportunity for the US to cripple the offensive capability of a major geopolitical competitor for pennies on the dollar.
 
My own reaction is that the line between "war" and the sort of clandestine attacks against military targets that have formerly been called "terrorism" (such as the attack on the USS Cole) seems to be vanishing. What difference is there between this action and planting a truck bomb next to a military target? Now to be sure, Russia knows all about blurring lines, with its attacks with polonium-210 and Novichok. But now that both sides are willing to take a wider range of measures, will they egg each other on into a cycle of 'covert' escalation that ends in World War III?

The other reaction is that, win lose or draw, these fancy airplanes seem hopelessly obsolete. Even if air forces start sheltering them inside, they still have to go on missions sometime, and every mission ends with a landing. Who will be hanging around in the air to greet them?
 
bythoughts said:
My own reaction is that the line between "war" and the sort of clandestine attacks against military targets that have formerly been called "terrorism" (such as the attack on the USS Cole) seems to be vanishing. What difference is there between this action and planting a truck bomb next to a military target? Now to be sure, Russia knows all about blurring lines, with its attacks with polonium-210 and Novichok. But now that both sides are willing to take a wider range of measures, will they egg each other on into a cycle of 'covert' escalation that ends in World War III?

The other reaction is that, win lose or draw, these fancy airplanes seem hopelessly obsolete. Even if air forces start sheltering them inside, they still have to go on missions sometime, and every mission ends with a landing. Who will be hanging around in the air to greet them?
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🥳🎉🎉
 
cpwill said:
Ukraine continues to demonstrate that it offers an opportunity for the US to cripple the offensive capability of a major geopolitical competitor for pennies on the dollar.
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AND that is why it is so important that the US spends billions to upgrade their military :sneaky:
 
bythoughts said:
My own reaction is that the line between "war" and the sort of clandestine attacks against military targets that have formerly been called "terrorism" (such as the attack on the USS Cole) seems to be vanishing. What difference is there between this action and planting a truck bomb next to a military target? Now to be sure, Russia knows all about blurring lines, with its attacks with polonium-210 and Novichok. But now that both sides are willing to take a wider range of measures, will they egg each other on into a cycle of 'covert' escalation that ends in World War III?

The other reaction is that, win lose or draw, these fancy airplanes seem hopelessly obsolete. Even if air forces start sheltering them inside, they still have to go on missions sometime, and every mission ends with a landing. Who will be hanging around in the air to greet them?
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Attacking military targets is now terrorism?? Yeesh! :rolleyes:
 
bythoughts said:
According to this: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ian-war-hawks-demand-nuclear-retaliation.html

a swarm of Ukrainian drones sallied out of each of two parked trucks to destroy 40 Russian aircraft at Olenya in the Arctic Murmansk region and Belaya in eastern Siberia. What are your reactions?
Click to expand...
I wouldn't compare this to Pearl Harbor for a bunch of reasons.

This is more like Inchon. A very audacious and clever plan that nobody saw coming, and wasn't preventable even if they saw it coming.

It was a very complex plan, which is usually a bad thing, but they were working on it for 18 months and it came off like an action movie.

Truck pulls up, flaps open, drones go in giving air defense about 3 seconds to react, then the trucks ignite. The operators were nowhere in the area, and were safely back in Ukraine before the shit hit the fan. Not sure what was going on with the truck drivers, but allow me to stress this one thing:

This shows that the idea of autonomous cargo trucks is a really, really stupid idea. That isn't what happened here, but that would make this attack infinitely repeatable.
 
bythoughts said:
My own reaction is that the line between "war" and the sort of clandestine attacks against military targets that have formerly been called "terrorism" (such as the attack on the USS Cole) seems to be vanishing. What difference is there between this action and planting a truck bomb next to a military target? Now to be sure, Russia knows all about blurring lines, with its attacks with polonium-210 and Novichok. But now that both sides are willing to take a wider range of measures, will they egg each other on into a cycle of 'covert' escalation that ends in World War III?

The other reaction is that, win lose or draw, these fancy airplanes seem hopelessly obsolete. Even if air forces start sheltering them inside, they still have to go on missions sometime, and every mission ends with a landing. Who will be hanging around in the air to greet them?
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In an open war, all of those things are permissible.

If Russia didn't want to get hurt, they should have stayed out of the ****ing mosh pit.
 
Poor Russia, getting spanked for invading Ukraine, but invading Israel requires a strong reaction. Why do I mention this? Because it is typically the same people who love seeing Israel taking it to the Palestinians who moan and groan about how Ukraine is striking Russia.

The only part I don't get: Are those types being paid in dollars or rubles?
 
Hamish Howl said:
I wouldn't compare this to Pearl Harbor for a bunch of reasons.

This is more like Inchon. A very audacious and clever plan that nobody saw coming, and wasn't preventable even if they saw it coming.
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You do have a big point that Ukraine and Russia were already at war. However, under the Biden Administration the U.S. was closely involved in much of the planning. If this was purely an attack by Ukraine, it's definitely not a Pearl Harbor. But if the U.S. planned out how to do this and Ukrainians just drove the truck, it's a different matter.

Any day now the U.S. could finally talk itself into war with Iran, and then Americans will see what it's like to have "Iran" attacking us with Russian weapons and Russian intel. How do we keep this from spiralling out of control?
 
bythoughts said:
You do have a big point that Ukraine and Russia were already at war. However, under the Biden Administration the U.S. was closely involved in much of the planning.
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Good. This was a very worthy use of tax dollars if that is the case.
bythoughts said:
If this was purely an attack by Ukraine, it's definitely not a Pearl Harbor. But if the U.S. planned out how to do this and Ukrainians just drove the truck, it's a different matter.
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You make it sound like Budanov isn't a cheerful psychotic whose wife was poisoned by the Russians and almost died.

You don't teach Budanov how to be violent. He's way ahead of you.
bythoughts said:
Any day now the U.S. could finally talk itself into war with Iran, and then Americans will see what it's like to have "Iran" attacking us with Russian weapons and Russian intel. How do we keep this from spiralling out of control?
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It would be like watching Iran fly into a brick wall. Russian tech has been proven to be garbage.
 
bythoughts said:
My own reaction is that the line between "war" and the sort of clandestine attacks against military targets that have formerly been called "terrorism" (such as the attack on the USS Cole) seems to be vanishing. What difference is there between this action and planting a truck bomb next to a military target? Now to be sure, Russia knows all about blurring lines, with its attacks with polonium-210 and Novichok. But now that both sides are willing to take a wider range of measures, will they egg each other on into a cycle of 'covert' escalation that ends in World War III?

The other reaction is that, win lose or draw, these fancy airplanes seem hopelessly obsolete. Even if air forces start sheltering them inside, they still have to go on missions sometime, and every mission ends with a landing. Who will be hanging around in the air to greet them?
Click to expand...
Attacking military targets in war is not terrorism.
 
watsup said:
Unfortunately, it will only cause Putin to become more destructive in this war. Expect some real setbacks for Ukraine in the next few weeks.
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Absolutely. And expect an even nastier response by Ukraine.

The only way you deal with someone like Putin is by bringing a flamethrower to a fist fight.
 
cpwill said:
Ukraine continues to demonstrate that it offers an opportunity for the US to cripple the offensive capability of a major geopolitical competitor for pennies on the dollar.
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If you are referring to drones, the US military has 10,000 of them.
 
Hamish Howl said:
I have not heard @bythoughts complain about Russia deliberately targeting civilian apartment buildings.

Presumably that's different, for reasons that do not concern you or me.
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Or kidnapping Ukraine children, ~20,000.
 
bythoughts said:
My own reaction is that the line between "war" and the sort of clandestine attacks against military targets that have formerly been called "terrorism" (such as the attack on the USS Cole) seems to be vanishing. What difference is there between this action and planting a truck bomb next to a military target? Now to be sure, Russia knows all about blurring lines, with its attacks with polonium-210 and Novichok. But now that both sides are willing to take a wider range of measures, will they egg each other on into a cycle of 'covert' escalation that ends in World War III?

The other reaction is that, win lose or draw, these fancy airplanes seem hopelessly obsolete. Even if air forces start sheltering them inside, they still have to go on missions sometime, and every mission ends with a landing. Who will be hanging around in the air to greet them?
Click to expand...
In this particular case the two nations are at war since Russia invaded Ukraine over 3 years ago. These were military targets and the attacks were conducted by the Ukrainian military, unlike the USS Cole attack which was carried out by a non state actor. Of note here is the ever increasing use of drones with pretty devastating results at relatively low cost in equipment and loss of life.
 
MAGAnificent said:
Silly estimate. Ours are reusable.
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No longer effective enough.

When you are dealing with a conventional mechanized opponent, all that matters is rate of fire/target saturation. Our drones are optimized to take out high value targets, not waves of attacking tanks.
 
Hamish Howl said:
I have not heard @bythoughts complain about Russia deliberately targeting civilian apartment buildings.

Presumably that's different, for reasons that do not concern you or me.
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Certainly I don't approve of such war crimes. The Russians have done a lot of awful things, like leaving booby traps in civilian buildings when they withdrew.
Even so, this attack seems like it pushes things a bit further, because the bomb trucks somehow ended up in the stream of civilian commerce. They had to get in somewhere. I mean, it's wrong for a drone to fly over the front and hit a civilian building, but AFAIK the Russians aren't setting up trucks of explosives somewhere in the EU and driving them into Ukraine from the west to blow them up. It may be just a little bit less holding us back from WWIII, but there's not much left that is.

I don't deny that Ukraine needed a victory to bring Russia to the table, but I feel like there must have been some way to connive a victory that actually helps Ukraine take territory, rather than one intended to help after the nukes start flying. It makes me wonder why that kind of victory was necessary.
 
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