• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

[W:#23,579]Ukraine War Thread

If I am not mistaken I pointed out in name the Generals I was alluding to. I made mention of Robert E Lee, Longstreet, Thomas Jackson, McClellan, AP HIll, DH Hill. So those are the one I can be asked to address.





You have to do more than that. When I used Rober E Lee as an example I did not just make vague references. I selected an example: the Peninsula campaign, and went into a detailed explanation- at least as far as a forum post can allow- on how he pulled a victory out of a near hopeless situation.

I will like to ask you how you believe the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia could have been better handled. Was the Army of Northern Virginia better off under Lee's predecessor Joseph E Johnston? And more to the point, are you seriously saying the handling of the Army of Northern Virginia by Lee in the Seven Days of Battles was not brilliant?

Lee fought many other battles, you are welcome to make your pick if the Peninsula Campaign is not your preferred choice.

And you are also welcome to select European Generals you like to make your point.

As to Grant, you are also welcome to contrast him with Lee, to demonstrate how you came about with the conclusion that he was far superior. And before you go into it I will like to point out to you that Lee almost always took to the field against superior odds, while Grant had the superiority on his side. That has to be factored in when you judge Generals
Well, If we are going to have this ridiculous discussion referencing to different historical battlefields in order to predict how the war will end in the Ukraine..
Napoleon occupied Moskva for 5 weeks (waiting for a peace offering that never came).

He still lost the war.

Through Europe and all of Belarus and bits of Russia, Napoleon hollowed out his army so that he could not hold the areas he conquered and when he was done his losses were so great that Russia's forces equaled his. His units though where tired and unmotivated, which the Russians were not

A war is never about just winning battlefields, it is and has always been about capability to hold them and about negotiations for peace.
 
Last edited:
There appears to be rivalry among the posters. It seems that the poster who knows most about past military campaigns and present military weapons systems must be about to get an award since some attack others for not having attained their level of proficiency in these matters and others defend against any minor ignorance of a fact (say about some obscure Civil War skirmish). In my opinion, there is testosterone at work.

I come here to find out what is going on beyond what I can cull from the newspapers. Some of you have wonderful backgrounds and wonderful minds and I learn a lot from you. I see no need to fight Napoleon's battles here again. I am sure that they have been chronicled in many military history books and reading about them here detracts from the thread.
 
There appears to be rivalry among the posters. It seems that the poster who knows most about past military campaigns and present military weapons systems must be about to get an award since some attack others for not having attained their level of proficiency in these matters and others defend against any minor ignorance of a fact (say about some obscure Civil War skirmish). In my opinion, there is testosterone at work.

I come here to find out what is going on beyond what I can cull from the newspapers. Some of you have wonderful backgrounds and wonderful minds and I learn a lot from you. I see no need to fight Napoleon's battles here again. I am sure that they have been chronicled in many military history books and reading about them here detracts from the thread.
Hmm, have we caught you on a bad week?

Please, please listen to @W_Heisenberg and just drop this topic. I really do not want to give you a lesson on South Vietnam; you are not a quick enough learner.

Just scroll past the posts you find tedious and let other posters that doesn't find them tedious read and answer them. It's a huge subject and what you find unimportant and uninteresting might not be unimportant and uninteresting to me and reverse. No one of us should give advice on what to post and what to not post or how to approach or argue our positions. It would diminish the discussion if we do and even more so if we get other posters to listen to us.

(And the irony of this post of mine.....:oops: I know, you don't have to tell me....)
 
As the KIA/WIA increases, economics sanctions taking a toll, a long list of negatives.
Wonder where we will be come Jan?
How will Putin sell/spin this war come the New Year?
Ukraine is increasingly, incrementally, beginning to look like Russia's Afghanistan + NATO. Indeed, Afghanistan 2.0 + NATO.

Even without NATO in Afghanistan but with US weapons that were basic and simple, plus US trainers, Soviet Russia bled to death then bumbled on to its ultimate collapse. To the contrary btw after Vietnam the US reorganized its armed force by implementing the AVF then twice elected Reagan who was Soviet Russia's worst nightmare. Indeed, US multibillion corporations are never going to accept Russia or China as their rulers/owners. Neither will the US armed forces for their own reasons of fidelity course.

US departing Afghanistan has had no negative consequence domestically. The current USA domestic turmoil began after voters across the nation elected Obama, then voters reelected Obama -- this is when the Republican party went openly and brazenly fascist. That is, Americans who vote "wrong" need to be stopped, their leaders locked away. Yet this will not end well for 'em of course -- and for certain.

Your inquisitive probe into where hard pressed Russia will be come January is valid, whereas we've seen the PutinRowers stop saying to check back with 'em at the end of the year. As Russia continues to bleed in Ukraine the PutinRowers are dreading the end of the year. The Rowers have stopped trying to poke at us about a Ukraine million man Army everyone except them knew was not a statement to be taken literally. Rather, Russia is looking now at a Ukraine counteroffensive in the South to regain its seaports, thereby forcing Russia to divide its bleeding forces to the South from the Donbas wasteland. Indeed Donbas was always a PutinPatch that like a flawed postage stamp won't stick. And after Ukraine regains its seaports Donbass will be a PutinPatch postage stamp that gets retired.
 
Novorussya, or "new Russia" is an 19th century term of the Tsarist empire that was reanimated by Putin to re-establish former Tsarist and Soviet imperial ownership. Nominally it included the black sea coast and some part of eastern Ukraine, especially the Donbas. It's 'definition' as "Russian" aside from historic conquest by Russian Tsars is that of being one of Russia's (or Muskuvoy's) history of many internal colonializations. Russians migrated into and took over some areas as "theirs" and in the meantime, under the Soviets, millions of resistant heritage peoples of Ukraine were ethnically cleansed and shipped to the far east.

Complicating the definition is the contradictory Russian views of Ukrainians as really Russians and are therefore illegitimate as a separate nation, which is in tension with their common view that Russians are different in language and culture and they should own the east half the country, and the remainder in the west can be taken by Poland (or otherwise left to wither with those western Ukrainians).

This is, as those of us familiar with Russian "logic", a case of having your cake and eating it too (i.e. "you are really Russian except when we say you are not").

Anyway, while Putin has adopted these typical Russian nationalist views he also adds his own expansive ambitions ; all Russians are compatriots, which is defined as anyone who is a Russian speaker, and they are protected "regardless of whether they want it or need it and irrespective of the fact that they live in another sovereign state." (Catherine Wanner, ‘“Fraternal” nations and challenges to sovereignty in Ukraine" American Ethnologist (August 2014), p.432.)

As for what Russian minorities wanted regarding separatism was, and even more so is, irrelevant. Only in Crimea and parts (not the whole) of the Donbas were ethno Russians a majority. More importantly since 2014 the identification with Russia plummeted. The Party of Regions imploded. And upon the invasion, even recognized pro Russian sympathizers refused to cooperate with the invaders (the Mayor of Odesa, the Mayor of Kyrvyi Rih (Zelensky's home town)). The vast majority of Ukrainians in "New Russia", including those who speak as Russians, don't want to be part of Putin's "New Russia".

Putin is simply playing the "ethnic card" and the diaspora as a breaker of nations, usable for the purpose of destroying consolidated states in the formerly in the Soviet imperial boundaries. He could give a fart about what the people in those spaces want or yearn for.

Great post.
 
There appears to be rivalry among the posters. It seems that the poster who knows most about past military campaigns and present military weapons systems must be about to get an award since some attack others for not having attained their level of proficiency in these matters and others defend against any minor ignorance of a fact (say about some obscure Civil War skirmish). In my opinion, there is testosterone at work.

I come here to find out what is going on beyond what I can cull from the newspapers. Some of you have wonderful backgrounds and wonderful minds and I learn a lot from you. I see no need to fight Napoleon's battles here again. I am sure that they have been chronicled in many military history books and reading about them here detracts from the thread.

I see your point. I feel differently about it. Except for the trolls, I am reading lots of interesting posts. Sometimes I agree, sometimes not, but I like learning, whether it is fresh insights on history or a new source to follow on Twitter or YouTube or elsewhere. I like how it is branching out.
 
Just an info note. Avdiivka and Pisky have been battleground towns since 2014, often switching hands and sometimes being occupied simultaneously.

So to propose that a Russian occupation of either town is a major Kremlin victory is just plain hogwash.
 

The vote was 95-1-1

Senator Josh Hawley (R/MO) voted "No" and Senator Rand Paul (R/KY) voted "Present"



Russian forces are using the nuclear facility at Enerhodar as a shield for Russian artillery. Either Ukraine returns fire, risking international condemnation and a nuclear incident (which Ukrainian forces are unlikely to do), or Ukrainian forces allow Russian forces to continue firing on Ukrainian positions from an effective ‘safe zone'. Towns shelled yesterday from Enerhodar include Nikopol which is now without electricity. Mykolaiv was also struck. The Russians fired on Kharkiv from artillery positions located inside Russia.

The Russians have abducted Serhiy Lyakhno, the mayor of the village of Hornostaivka in Kherson oblast. Moscow is preparing for an illegal referendum in the Kherson region.



 
Just an info note. Avdiivka and Pisky have been battleground towns since 2014, often switching hands and sometimes being occupied simultaneously.

So to propose that a Russian occupation of either town is a major Kremlin victory is just plain hogwash.
Not hogwash. Bakhmut and Kramatorsk are the linch pins to take the rest of the Donbas. Saying otherwise is just sour grapes.
 
Ukraine is increasingly, incrementally, beginning to look like Russia's Afghanistan + NATO. Indeed, Afghanistan 2.0 + NATO.

Even without NATO in Afghanistan but with US weapons that were basic and simple, plus US trainers, Soviet Russia bled to death then bumbled on to its ultimate collapse. To the contrary btw after Vietnam the US reorganized its armed force by implementing the AVF then twice elected Reagan who was Soviet Russia's worst nightmare. Indeed, US multibillion corporations are never going to accept Russia or China as their rulers/owners. Neither will the US armed forces for their own reasons of fidelity course.

US departing Afghanistan has had no negative consequence domestically. The current USA domestic turmoil began after voters across the nation elected Obama, then voters reelected Obama -- this is when the Republican party went openly and brazenly fascist. That is, Americans who vote "wrong" need to be stopped, their leaders locked away. Yet this will not end well for 'em of course -- and for certain.

Your inquisitive probe into where hard pressed Russia will be come January is valid, whereas we've seen the PutinRowers stop saying to check back with 'em at the end of the year. As Russia continues to bleed in Ukraine the PutinRowers are dreading the end of the year. The Rowers have stopped trying to poke at us about a Ukraine million man Army everyone except them knew was not a statement to be taken literally. Rather, Russia is looking now at a Ukraine counteroffensive in the South to regain its seaports, thereby forcing Russia to divide its bleeding forces to the South from the Donbas wasteland. Indeed Donbas was always a PutinPatch that like a flawed postage stamp won't stick. And after Ukraine regains its seaports Donbass will be a PutinPatch postage stamp that gets retired.
I'd love to talk about this million man counter offensive in Kherson. Any news on it?
 
Juin, your examples from the Civil war do not cut it. 99% of the US Generals were just friking military morons. The troops they lead had their officers elected, even their senior officers.
Lee was a 1 trick pony, had no idea of a overall strategic plan. Had only 1 solution to a battle. The Union Generals, should have not made Corporal.
The incompetence of military leadership in the civil war is just epic, including the troops.


The one who finally got it was Grant, but the rest are just pretenders, actors. From the military side, that war is a embarrassment, of incompetence and nothing more, costing 100 of thousand soldiers their lives.
Nothing to be proud of.
Even in the 19th century the long practiced principle was to recruit willing Soldiers, train and treat them well and have leaders that care about 'em and their well being. In contrast of course badly performing armies as we are witnessing of the Russians in Ukraine are composed of unwilling conscripts who are poorly treated and led on top of being inadequately armed and equipped. The "don'ts" are exactly Russia in Ukraine ain't they.


The Union mobilized more than ten times as many Soldiers as in the 2-year Mex-Am War and when there were only 20K professional Soldiers in 1860. The sudden huge number was simply beyond most high-level commanders. Coordinating the vast armies was challenging to say the least. Almost all volunteer regiments were state militias that had never been part of such a huge (Union) force and had never served much less fought as an integrated part of a unified command across all (Union) state forces.

Offensive operations into enemy territory here and there were also extremely difficult logistically although the Union got greatly better at it after Lincoln appointed the masterful logistician Gen. Charlie Halleck as chief of staff -- Halleck who was regarded as an intellectual and who many call brilliant got supplies and reinforcements exactly when they were needed and where. The conscious exception was Sherman who would not risk depending on supply lines through GA and to the Sea, having his many troops forage off the land and its farms, towns, villages. With Sherman's 60 mile wide swathe across GA his mass of troops were well fed and on the spot; Sherman commanded his sprawling and steadily advancing force superbly.


The Union's early problems were somewhat similar to those of the USSR in 1941. Stalin had to rapidly and hugely expand the size of the Red Army while also having lost a good number of the officer corps -- in the Union's case caused by abandonment, in the USSR the prewar purges that put junior officers in command of large units. It's challenging to know who will succeed and who will fail when lieutenant colonels and majors are necessarily thrust on the spot into becoming brigade and division commanders.



Grant's great and determined success in the West, ie, the Mississippi River Valley states to include New Orleans, caused Lincoln to advance him to General in Chief of all Union Forces. (Whatever brand of whiskey he drinks, Lincoln proclaimed, send it to all our generals!) First thing Grant did was send the incompetent officers to the West where Grant and Sherman -- and the step brothers Adm. Farragut and Adm. Porter, sons of a Navy Commodore father -- had well settled matters. Concomitantly Grant advanced new commanders to his forces in the East based on reports by their units. As I noted in scrolling, Grant was given full authority by Lincoln to win the war which he and Gen. Sherman restrategized and proceeded to do. There's a fascinating book: The Friendship That Won The War.

Another immediate move by Grant was to advance Gen. Philip Sheridan to command of Union cavalry which had been far outclassed by Confederate cavalry and the likes of Gen. Bedford Forrest among others. Sheridan in turn advanced the Michigan boy Custer as his primary (lead) division commander, which is a remarkable story given the hard and fast riding General George Armstrong Custer had started the war right out of West Point as a cavalry lieutenant troop leader. So as the saying goes, when you got it, flaunt it. As Potus, Grant appointed Sherman as General in Chief of the Army and chose as his in turn successor Gen. Sheridan who Grant always said was the best general in the Army.

Post Civil War and to correct shortcomings the Army established its War College and also the Army Command & General Staff College, among other colleges of advanced studies of command in war and peace.


Your post is very harsh given especially German generals have lost two world wars. In the same half century besides. After causing both of 'em of course.
 
Last edited:
I'd love to talk about this million man counter offensive in Kherson. Any news on it?
You missed the line in my post that, "The Putin Rowers have stopped trying to poke at us about a Ukraine million man Army everyone except them knew was not a statement to be taken literally."

This is old hat as it were yet you PutinRowers still don't get that your posts are a silly and vacuous waste of time to many.
 
I'd love to talk about this million man counter offensive in Kherson. Any news on it?



Something appears to have spooked Kyiv. The air in the western media is still thick with frenzied expectations of the much announced counter offensives. Understandable. Kyiv has done an excellent job marketing it. But a new alarm is emerging from Kyiv. Bizarre. Cause the drift of the announcements suggests Kyiv is actually seeing a possible Russian offensive in Kherson. First there were hysterical screams from Kyiv that Russia had massed some 30 BTGs. How Russia managed to do that under the blitz of Kyiv's HIMARs is not explained. Now another alarm call is that the Russians are chomping at the bits to have a go at Zelensky's hometown Kryvyi Rih. Zelensky's hometown. That has to be hallowed ground. Where the Ukrainian Moses saw the light of the day? To lose Kryvyi Rih will be as devastating a blow as the Israelites losing the Arc of the Covenant to the Philistines.





KYIV, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Wednesday that Russia had started creating a military strike force aimed at President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's hometown of Kryvyi Rih and warned that Moscow could be preparing new offensive operations in southern Ukraine.




 
Something appears to have spooked Kyiv. The air in the western media is still thick with frenzied expectations of the much announced counter offensives. Understandable. Kyiv has done an excellent job marketing it. But a new alarm is emerging from Kyiv. Bizarre. Cause the drift of the announcements suggests Kyiv is actually seeing a possible Russian offensive in Kherson. First there were hysterical screams from Kyiv that Russia had massed some 30 BTGs. How Russia managed to do that under the blitz of Kyiv's HIMARs is not explained. Now another alarm call is that the Russians are chomping at the bits to have a go at Zelensky's hometown Kryvyi Rih. Zelensky's hometown. That has to be hallowed ground. Where the Ukrainian Moses saw the light of the day? To lose Kryvyi Rih will be as devastating a blow as the Israelites losing the Arc of the Covenant to the Philistines.

KYIV, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Wednesday that Russia had started creating a military strike force aimed at President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's hometown of Kryvyi Rih and warned that Moscow could be preparing new offensive operations in southern Ukraine.


Exactly what is happening strategically isn't entirely obvious. Many weeks of advertising by Zelensky of his plans at first prompted shifts by Russia to reinforce certain areas of the south. The "offensive" may have been underway for sometime, but in a matter of patient corrosion of Russian holdings in the South. Complicating matters is an report on July 24th that Ukraine's Kherson front brigade commander and three col.'s were killed in a Russian strike - delaying planning and execution of the offense.

Russia appears to be gathering forces for a spoiler attack(s), which is why Zelensky is calling out likely areas where they will occur.
 
Not hogwash. Bakhmut and Kramatorsk are the linch pins to take the rest of the Donbas. Saying otherwise is just sour grapes.

Your predictions regarding Avdiivka and Pisky are indeed hogwash.

I can't count the number times these towns have been occupied by rebels only to have them liberated the next month.

And let us know when your Russian military takes Bakhmut and Kramatorsk comrade.

You're worse than a Ouija Board.
 
I'd love to talk about this million man counter offensive in Kherson. Any news on it?



The pieces appear to be falling like snow flakes today. A tweeter said it sounded too good to be true, and he has a point; Adviivka appears to have fallen. Or, to be more precise, per Ukrainian official Oleksiy Gromov, the Armed Forces of Ukraine abandoned the fortified positions to fall back to Bakhmut. All in disciplined and organised fashion. If Ukraine doesn't plug that hole its adjacent fortifications may have to face Russian attacks from their rear



 
It seems to be true, but that is how reality is sometimes. Maybe one day I will pretend that Ukraine is winning the war to make everyone feel good.


Wont that be nice:)? I can see the thread doing a rendition of John Lennon's Imagine to celebrate your metamorphosis

Imagine there's no Russia
It's easy if you try
No Putin below us
Above us, only Zelensky

Imagine all Azov Brigade
Livin' for today
Ah

Imagine there's no Nord Stream
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no Russian gas, too

Imagine Frau Baerbock
Green as ever
Livin' life in peace
You

You may say I'm a green man
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be green again

Imagine no carbon emissions
I wonder if you can
No need for oil or gas
A planet for green folks

Imagine there's no more trolls
Messing up the threads
You

You may say I hate Russians
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be free of Russians
 
It seems to be true, but that is how reality is sometimes. Maybe one day I will pretend that Ukraine is winning the war to make everyone feel good.


You will have to postpone that day, because today Ukraine is losing yardage on numerous fronts. Moscow's famous Wagner Ochestra is performing on Patrice Lumumba Street in Bakhmut. Can you believe that? A flashback from the Cold War days. There is actually a street in Bakhmut called Patrice Lumumba Street. During the Cold War days there was an international University in Moscow call the Patrice Lumumba University, which turned out revolutionaries to sow mischief around the world


 
So many blatant lies, so many false flags from the Zelensky regime.

While conducting an investigation of Russian attacks in the Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolaiv regions of Ukraine between April and July, Amnesty International researchers said they discovered that the Ukrainian military was operating out of civilian buildings in at least 19 towns and villages. The discovery was corroborated by satellite images, according to the release.

The organization said that Ukraine committed "a clear violation of international humanitarian law" by basing at least five military facilities in civilian hospitals. Russian airstrikes on health care facilities have resulted in a significant number of civilian injuries and deaths during the war, according to the World Health Organization.

Amnesty International also discovered that Ukraine had installed military bases in 22 out of 29 schools visited in the Donbas and Mykolaiv regions during the investigation, according to the release. The organization said that Russia later launched strikes on many of the same schools between April and late June, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries.

Following the destruction of schools in at least three towns, Ukraine's military is accused of moving bases to schools in different areas, putting the community surrounding the new bases at risk for similar attacks.
 
Back
Top Bottom