True but it's been my experience that advanced weapons with the best electronics only slightly change the odds against those with guts with a population willing to die for something they truly believe in.

Forgive my historical ignorance... Russia's actions show similarities of the Nazi campaigns in the sense that they are seemingly willing to go to war with many foes if they interfere as well as tyrannical objectives in general.

Maybe as a military man you can explain why they would risk so much for what seems like an insignificant objective. The Nazis were very successful against many odds with technology giving them the edge. They also had the ability to build massive infrastructure while waging war for what we all know to be their ulterior objectives...

 

My military experience was mainly communicating with the people doing the actual killing so I'm no warrior expert thank goodness.

I don't want compare anything happening today with the Nazi campaigns. IMO this was started by a misguided and possibly dying dictator with delusions of an imperial Russia believing the Ukraine wants Russia tripe told to him by crooks stealing most of the military money and resources needed to have any chance of a quick and decisive strike. The investment in blood on both sides makes it very hard to see a quick end to this horror of wasting human lives and property. The advanced weapons will only increase the total of dead in the end, IMO they won't be decisive.

 

My military experience was mainly communicating with the people doing the actual killing so I'm no warrior expert thank goodness.

I don't want compare anything happening today with the Nazi campaigns. IMO this was started by a misguided and possibly dying dictator with delusions of an imperial Russia believing the Ukraine wants Russia tripe told to him by crooks stealing most of the military money and resources needed to have any chance of a quick and decisive strike. The investment in blood on both sides makes it very hard to see a quick end to this horror of wasting human lives and property. The advanced weapons will only increase the total of dead in the end, IMO they won't be decisive.

What will be decisive? Foreign intervention? The point I was making with the Nazis is that it took a huge allied force to neutralize them over many years. They achieved this by using slaves and salvaged materials in addition to their technology. This speaks to your point about people fighting to the bitter end, the difference is they had some of the best gear. As war continues to evolve, I don't see how the lesser stands a chance. What's worse is the powers that be appear to be watching and not wanting to get involved. And I don't think it will stop with the death of a dictator. I'm not a political person so I could really be out of my element here.

 

What will be decisive? Foreign intervention? The point I was making with the Nazis is that it took a huge allied force to neutralize them over many years. They achieved this by using slaves and salvaged materials in addition to their technology. This speaks to your point about people fighting to the bitter end, the difference is they had some of the best gear. As war continues to evolve, I don't see how the lesser stands a chance. What's worse is the powers that be appear to be watching and not wanting to get involved. And I don't think it will stop with the death of a dictator. I'm not a political person so I could really be out of my element here.

I've talked to some of the locals about this. (we have a Ukrainian Bible Church in the city) My kids have gone to school with their kids.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/lo...nvas/283-b128ce44-a83e-4bce-beb1-fc5bf25a54ea

They don't want to destroy Russia (Putin is an exception to that) or really care who is in charge in Russia if the war ends, hell many of their relatives live in Russia, So IMO there is a huge difference here from the Nazi campaigns that limits foreign intervention and rightly so.

"Powers that be appear to be watching and not wanting to get involved"?
The public actions of most of the world are totally counter to this statement given the geopolitical shift of NATO and support of the Ukrainian military. I watched the Soviets attack Afghanistan in 1980. Much like now there was a massive weapons supply for the locals willing to fight and a covert war we fought more directly with Russia not publicly talked about much. I suspect our support in Ukraine has covert operations directly on Russian targets we likely never will know about.

 

Did not the US make a great spy plane out of titanium from the then USSR ?
If you have a market system, then you will have "leakages"
In the 80's, the west / east had rules in place to restrict sales,
in the 90's the market became "open"
its only relatively recently the markets have closed bakc up

Back in the 80's, the US sent grain to the USSR,
now the USSR is the grain capital of the world !

In the 80's, the west had very little oil gas from the USSR, now ...... its different,

Even in the 80's
The USSR , was reverse engineering chips

so are we surprised that the worlds weapons are powered by the worlds best chips ?

 

I've talked to some of the locals about this. (we have a Ukrainian Bible Church in the city) My kids have gone to school with their kids.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/lo...nvas/283-b128ce44-a83e-4bce-beb1-fc5bf25a54ea

They don't want to destroy Russia (Putin is an exception to that) or really care who is in charge in Russia if the war ends, hell many of their relatives live in Russia, So IMO there is a huge difference here from the Nazi campaigns that limits foreign intervention and rightly so.

"Powers that be appear to be watching and not wanting to get involved"?
The public actions of most of the world are totally counter to this statement given the geopolitical shift of NATO and support of the Ukrainian military. I watched the Soviets attack Afghanistan in 1980. Much like now there was a massive weapons supply for the locals willing to fight and a covert war we fought more directly with Russia not publicly talked about much. I suspect our support in Ukraine has covert operations directly on Russian targets we likely never know about.

Apologies, I am speculating on something I know little about.

 

 

https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20220530PD204.html

Taiwan restricts exports of strategic high-tech commodities to Russia and Belarus

- Has performance of 5 GFLOPS. To put it into context, Sony's PlayStation 2 released in 2000 had peak performance of around 6.2 FP32 GFLOPS.
- Operates at 25 MHz or higher.
- Has an ALU that is wider than 32 bits.
- Has an external interconnection with a data transfer rate of 2.5 MB/s or over.
- Has more than 144 pins.
- Has basic gate propagation delay time of less than 0.4 nanosecond.

In addition to being unable to buy chips from Taiwanese companies, Russian entities will not be able to get any chip production equipment from Taiwan, which includes scanners, scanning electron microscopes, and all other types of semiconductor tools that can be used to make chips locally or perform reverse engineering (something that the country pins a lot of hopes on).

 

https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20220530PD204.html

Taiwan restricts exports of strategic high-tech commodities to Russia and Belarus

- Has performance of 5 GFLOPS. To put it into context, Sony's PlayStation 2 released in 2000 had peak performance of around 6.2 FP32 GFLOPS.
- Operates at 25 MHz or higher.
- Has an ALU that is wider than 32 bits.
- Has an external interconnection with a data transfer rate of 2.5 MB/s or over.
- Has more than 144 pins.
- Has basic gate propagation delay time of less than 0.4 nanosecond.

In addition to being unable to buy chips from Taiwanese companies, Russian entities will not be able to get any chip production equipment from Taiwan, which includes scanners, scanning electron microscopes, and all other types of semiconductor tools that can be used to make chips locally or perform reverse engineering (something that the country pins a lot of hopes on).

What's the point? Seems a bit petty to me. Either do business with them or don't.

We'll sell you blunt sticks but not pointy ones. Well, actually We'll sell you pointy sticks but only ones with less than 3 points and under 4ft long. P.s. we know you can buy pointy sticks anywhere else and also you can sharpen your own sticks but we're trying to make a point and that point is that you're being very naughty. Not naughty enough for us to stop doing business with you, but naughty enough that we feel compelled to publicly acknowledge your naughtiness with this silly wrist slap.

 

From an infantry point of view, on the Russian side, mostly the fighters are a bunch of draftees following orders, while on the Ukraine side are people fighting for their country and their lives. So the motivation is quite different. That is why some of the conscripts ran and left equipment behind. Chickens know to run at any apparent threat.

The corruption is another issue. But the Russians have been able to steal much of what they could not buy, and their stinking commie government does it's best to stomp out most of what makes Ukraine great. ( Do I show a bit of prejudice here?? Certainly I do!!)

 

But the Russians have been able to steal much of what they could not buy

I certainly hope no "dual use" microcontrollers with potentially sinister specifications were harvested from the recently stolen tractors or else John Deere might be next in line to have their name dragged through the dirt.

 

It works both ways. Today, we can't get replacements of the Russian vacuum tubes needed to make microcontrollers (high voltage applications in older processing equipment).

https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/russias-stranglehold-on-vacuum-tubes

“Where are the Quaaludes?” moaned Kevin Deal, proprietor of Upscale Audio, a major online retailer of tubes and audio equipment. “People are acting really foolish right now, buying tubes when they don’t need them. I will sell tubes at a reasonable price to my customers who have bought from us for years, not to some rich guy who’s looking to be the King Midas of tubes.”

 

From an infantry point of view, on the Russian side, mostly the fighters are a bunch of draftees following orders, while on the Ukraine side are people fighting for their country and their lives. So the motivation is quite different. That is why some of the conscripts ran and left equipment behind. Chickens know to run at any apparent threat.

The corruption is another issue. But the Russians have been able to steal much of what they could not buy, and their stinking commie government does it's best to stomp out most of what makes Ukraine great. ( Do I show a bit of prejudice here?? Certainly I do!!)

Those that don't run, can't hide.