Does Ukraine Have the Capacity for a Doolittle Raid.

Palmpilot said:
I've been wondering how long this war was going to be confined to Ukrainian soil.
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I have 5 sons from 15-19, I wonder and fear the same thing. I see so many parallels with the late 30s going on. I don’t see any good or easy answers.
 
I don't think it's like the 30s. The events that led up to ww2 were mostly rooted in the poor handling of the end of ww1. Angry British and French governments with a lousy recovery plan. Understandable, but not a good choice. In the 30's, everyone involved was pretty much an economic powerhouse, and the primary instigators were on an economic upswing. Today, Russia isn't even in the top ten of GDP.

To me this is more like Spain before the Spanish American war. Declining country, annoying the other big countries, oppressing the poor people who lived in its colonies. Took about 30 minutes to take out their Navy, if I understand it correctly.
 
Pilawt said:
A well-known public figure was recently mocked for saying Putin was smart. Putin is indeed very smart. He is also very evil. That's a bad combination.
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That well-known public figure left out the evil part and had expressed his admiration of Putin, without caveat, many times.
 
Zeldman said:
Which I see the old saying, those that do not know history....
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Right…

yea it’s a cluster. Even in my own head trying to get my arms around it. I just don’t know where, when and how it end.

Putin victorious- oh crap, it would be just the beginning of the beginning… Putin defeated uhhh the next chapter then could get real interesting… Putin taken out/down from within well that’s a wild card of who’s next would it be better or worse…

my only solace is we seem quite United for us as normally pretty cantankerous Yankees with each other and with a vast majority of the developed world.

they say the Inuit didn’t even grasp the concept of war when we “civilized” them… save for them why can we never seem to grow beyond such animal like behavior of killing each other for lines in dirt… I will never get it… I’m a realist and accept it the best I can, I try not to be a novae idealist, but I am with John Lennon at heart…
 
Huckster79 said:
why can we never seem to grow beyond such animal like behavior of killing each other for lines in dirt… I will never get it… I’m a realist and accept it the best I can, I try not to be a novae idealist, but I am with John Lennon at heart…
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maybe because you think it’s about lines in the dirt and not protection against abuse. Your home is just “a line in the dirt”, isn’t it?
 
bflynn said:
maybe because you think it’s about lines in the dirt and not protection against abuse. Your home is just “a line in the dirt”, isn’t it?
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absolutely agree. What I find so frustrating and heartbreaking is causing death en masse is the solution man always goes to….

I’m an idealist mixed with realist… provoked what else is one to do but fight? Absolutely. But as evolved creatures we cannot seem to find a way to rid our species of the animalistic concept that violence is a great means to the end we want. It’s just absolutely a foolish concept. Killing seems to be our lowest common denominator… If we can’t get what we want in a civilized way then attack or kill is still a go to… wether that be a thief who wants in my home or Vladimir Putin wanting Ukraine…

I don’t hold defense via any means necessary as wrong at all…. But the aggressor of violence keeps that gene in our species that violence is a good solution.
 
Back to nurture or nature. Practically no violent crime in my town, Go to someplace like nyc and the per capita number is enormously higher.

Nuture AND nature. If it were genetic then it would not change from place to place, unless you’ll would make the case that people who live in big cities have a different genetic makeup. We are taught violence.

regardless, sometimes you just have to defend, whether that is your country, your neighbor’s country or your house.
 
Huckster79 said:
absolutely agree. What I find so frustrating and heartbreaking is causing death en masse is the solution man always goes to….

I’m an idealist mixed with realist… provoked what else is one to do but fight? Absolutely. But as evolved creatures we cannot seem to find a way to rid our species of the animalistic concept that violence is a great means to the end we want. It’s just absolutely a foolish concept. Killing seems to be our lowest common denominator… If we can’t get what we want in a civilized way then attack or kill is still a go to… wether that be a thief who wants in my home or Vladimir Putin wanting Ukraine…

I don’t hold defense via any means necessary as wrong at all…. But the aggressor of violence keeps that gene in our species that violence is a good solution.
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Sometimes I think we're just monkeys with nukes. :(
 
The Soviets dumped all of their resources in to strategic weapons. Their submarines, mostly but their fighter/bombers secondly. The problem they had was that they paid little attention to their ground forces. The dregs went in to them. That's probably true to this day. So just like in the former Soviet days, the individuals that we would be doing battle with were mostly conscript soldiers that had no real alliance with Russia other than they couldn't buy their way out of serving in the Infantry.

The Ukrainians, on the other hand, are fighting for their country. Their families. Their children. I think that in the end, they will win.
 
This, from Twitter…

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To be honest, I didn’t get it until reading the remarks.
 
I saw a comment/question a little while ago: Is this the first time a major naval power lost a flagship to a country without a navy?

edit: USS Cole may or may not count.
 
This war, as most wars of the past 120 years, is all about control of natural resources.

  • Donbas has a huge natural gas field, right smack dab in the middle of the area where they are currently fighting.

  • Crimea and the coast of Ukraine have huge gas and oil reserves that would be easily drill-able.

  • Ukraine stopped the flow of water into Crimea after the takeover in 2014.

If Ukraine would be allowed to tap into those reserves, and then sell those products to Europe, it would cut into Russia's market. That can not be tolerated....because it would take money away from the regime, and it would also make Ukraine a wealthier country (and more corrupt).

Remember, Japan got ticked at us in 1941 because we cut off their oil supplies. They didn't attack Pearl Harbor just because they were out for a stroll in the pacific.

And Biden saw what happened to his approval ratings after the "withdrawal" of our troops from Afghanistan.

The Ukrainians are having success because we (meaning the USA) have people on the ground there. They may not be "official", but they are there. I'm sure they have orders to not be captured, but god help us all if a few of them end up in Russian hands.

And to stay on topic, they have been making some successful raids across the borders. I think it's only a matter of time before they blow something up in Moscow.
 
Matthew said:
I saw a comment/question a little while ago: Is this the first time a major naval power lost a flagship to a country without a navy?
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Ukraine has a Navy, which has some anti-ship missiles. Neptune missiles, developed in Ukraine. That’s what they used, with success, against the Russian flagship Moskva.

I think that Ukraine actually has a very modern approach now for a Navy. Surface fleets are just sitting ducks nowadays.
 
NoHeat said:
Ukraine has a Navy, which has some anti-ship missiles. Neptune missiles, developed in Ukraine. That’s what they used, with success, against the Russian flagship Moskva.

I think that Ukraine actually has a very modern approach now for a Navy. Surface fleets are just sitting ducks nowadays.
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I didn’t know if that missile was ship or shore launched. Either way, it does sound like Moskva is out of the fight.
 
Neptune is a land based cruise missile, launched from a truck, located typically 25 km inland.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-360_Neptune

I’ve read that the attack on Moskva included a drone as a distraction. I think that shows a fundamental problem with big warships - they are high-value targets with defenses that can be overcome by a small swarm of low-priced attackers.
 
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The Moskova was the same ship that Ukranian soldiers told where to go when their surrender was demanded, an incident immortalized on a newly issued Ukraine postage stamp:
ukraine-stamp-design-contest-boris-groh-snake-island.jpg
 
Glad to see this thing sunk, but I’m not fully convinced Ukraine hit it. Moskva had plenty defense systems and Neptune wasn’t even in service before the war started. It was still being tested with some ways to go in development. It’s not exactly the first time Ukraine claims hitting a Russian ship it didn’t. And Russians aren’t known for handling their ammo all that well.

Still, hit or not, good job of making it disappear
 
genna said:
Glad to see this thing sunk, but I’m not fully convinced Ukraine hit it. Moskva had plenty defense systems and Neptune wasn’t even in service before the war started. It was still being tested with some ways to go in development. It’s not exactly the first time Ukraine claims hitting a Russian ship it didn’t. And Russians aren’t known for handling their ammo all that well.
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Certainly possible. After all, the US lost a major warship to a fire less than two years ago.

The coincidences tend to pile up on the Moskva, though. In a war zone, high-value target, obvious propaganda victory for Ukraine, etc. And the Bonhomme Richard was in port, undergoing maintenance with the fire suppression gear turned off.

There is, of course, a third possibility for what happened to the Moskva: Sabotage. If the ship *hadn't* been hit by missiles, I'm sure the Russian naval security folks are tearing through the crew right now. After all, the US Navy has charged an apprentice seaman for arson on the Bonnie Dick; an operational cruiser on war patrol is probably much easier to damage. Considering the Russians' problems with conscript morale, if it WASN'T a missile, they've got to be plenty worried. Traditionally, Russia drafted men into the navy for longer service than the army, not unlikely this ticked off some men. Anyone on board with Ukranian connections....?

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
Certainly possible. After all, the US lost a major warship to a fire less than two years ago.

The coincidences tend to pile up on the Moskva, though. In a war zone, high-value target, obvious propaganda victory for Ukraine, etc. And the Bonhomme Richard was in port, undergoing maintenance with the fire suppression gear turned off.

There is, of course, a third possibility for what happened to the Moskva: Sabotage. If the ship *hadn't* been hit by missiles, I'm sure the Russian naval security folks are tearing through the crew right now. After all, the US Navy has charged an apprentice seaman for arson on the Bonnie Dick; an operational cruiser on war patrol is probably much easier to damage. Considering the Russians' problems with conscript morale, if it WASN'T a missile, they've got to be plenty worried. Traditionally, Russia drafted men into the navy for longer service than the army, not unlikely this ticked off some men. Anyone on board with Ukranian connections....?

Ron Wanttaja
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There are a lot possibilities here. Most involve Russian incompetence (not that it’s better for them than missile hit)
1. Missile hit
2. Missile shot and missed, but in defending they mishandled ammo or something else
3. Fire
4. They hit own mine
5. Sabotage(not likely I would think)

All look bad for Russia

I don’t fault Ukraine for claiming the kill, but they are involved in war propaganda not much less than Russia. I have seen no evidence of it yet.

what kind of connections are you looking for? I have family there
 
Mig29 range payload in simplified terms. You have a choice, 1 bomb for two blocks or two bombs one block!
 
Dana said:
The Moskova was the same ship that Ukranian soldiers told where to go when their surrender was demanded, an incident immortalized on a newly issued Ukraine postage stamp:
ukraine-stamp-design-contest-boris-groh-snake-island.jpg
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I like this one better.FB_IMG_1649980880354.jpg
 
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

With that caveat, is it not notable that no video has surfaced of the missile attack on the Moskva. The Ukrainians have not been shy about publishing videos of other successful attacks up to this point.

Do our spy satellites have the resolution to have caught the event?
 
To be fair, they probably didn’t have a video camera out there with the ship.
 
FastEddieB said:
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

With that caveat, is it not notable that no video has surfaced of the missile attack on the Moskva. The Ukrainians have not been shy about publishing videos of other successful attacks up to this point.

Do our spy satellites have the resolution to have caught the event?
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true. However, a couple of weeks ago Ukraine claimed they hit a docked Russian ship. There is a video, no hits in it
 
FastEddieB said:
No, but I’d assume someone on or associated with the missile launch crew would have wanted to capture the event for posterity.
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Perhaps - but that's not a smart thing to do in a war. I know the war games I've done (Navy), video was the last thing on our minds.

In general these days, no external electronics is the rule for military operations. The most famous example came from Afghanistan where someone made a facebook post to tell his wife he was ok and his base got shelled 15 minutes later. They later learned the Taliban pulled the lat/long from the georeferenced photo and used it to sight their artillery. Electronic signal emissions is not the oldest battlefield intel, but is still useful in finding where your enemy is.
 
FastEddieB said:
No, but I’d assume someone on or associated with the missile launch crew would have wanted to capture the event for posterity.
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Was the missile launch site beyond visual range of the Moskva? Think I saw somewhere that the Ukranians typically base the missiles ~25 km from the beach. Kind of implies they don't need to see the target to shoot at it.

Ron Wanttaja
 
I doubt Ukraine would have risked any of their combat drones to sink this ship. They are to far valuable to them on the battle field.

Russia has told Finland and Sweden they will relocate nuclear weapons to the border if they join NATO and given the US written warning there may be unforeseen consequences if arms shipments continue.

Biden should answer that warning with an envelope bearing a Ukrainian go f yourself stamp.
 
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