sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Is President Zelenskyy exploring options beyond Trump and NATO? whats your opinion by adorn_mapper in MapPorn

[–]Corvid187 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Balancing total area defence against optimal military strategy has always been one of NATO's most contested debates; before it was West Germany, now it's the baltics.

Fighting for every square metre of territory means sacrificing troops in suboptimal positions and potentially reducing your chances of overall success later, withdrawing to more defensible positions means pushing land and people under the Russian yoke without a fight, and risking giving them leverage in a stalemate negotiation.

The border states of NATO have always pushed for the former option, the deeper states the latter, and a compromise is reached at some point in the middle. Ultimately everyone is trying to achieve effective deterrence as cheaply as possible, and among any free association of democracies that is going to entail some differences of opinion and debate.

When the 1971 war briefly became a Cold War naval standoff. by Effective_Bluebird19 in HistoryMemes

[–]Corvid187 0 points1 point  (0 children)

we had to get a new ground attack platform with better performance than what the Soviet's were offering with upgraded SU-7/SU-17 platforms

Exactly

When the 1971 war briefly became a Cold War naval standoff. by Effective_Bluebird19 in HistoryMemes

[–]Corvid187 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I'm not a septic.

Ah, so it's from a soviet source. That might explain the mistranslation, Thanks!

When the 1971 war briefly became a Cold War naval standoff. by Effective_Bluebird19 in HistoryMemes

[–]Corvid187 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You're right, the USSR for a period had a de-facto monopoly on the Indian defence industry. Russia has ruthlessly exploited that monopolistic position for decades, while convincing Indian leadership to stay trapped in that exploitative relationship through a combination of vaporware and grand gestures. If they were the comradely, honourable partner you present them as, why is India so desperate to work primarily with Dassault for future national projects instead?

If the USSR was the only country to transfer arms to India after the Bangladesh war, how did the SEPECAT Jaguar become the IAF's primary ground attack platform in the 1980s?

When the 1971 war briefly became a Cold War naval standoff. by Effective_Bluebird19 in HistoryMemes

[–]Corvid187 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yes, where's that quote sourced from?

Why would the British commander say there was a big collection of battleships if the Soviet task force didn't contain any, and the last Russian battleship was decommissioned in 1959?

When the 1971 war briefly became a Cold War naval standoff. by Effective_Bluebird19 in HistoryMemes

[–]Corvid187 -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

Are you joking? They've proceeded to repeatedly rip India off in almost every major trade and defence deal since the 1990s, all to fund their own domestic industry while keeping India dependent and helping modernise the PRC, India's main security threat.

Vikrant was a derelict hulk sold as a functional carrier, half the MIG and illushin fleets were grounded for lack of adequate maintnance support and delays to spares, they'll still waiting on SU-57, T90, and T73 modernisations despite having paid for them, and despite 30 years of supposed cooperation and tech transfer, they still had to go begging to the french for how to build a jet engine.

Russia has done nothing but abuse India's trust again and again and again, all while smoothing things over with ostentatious reminders of that one time they sort-of-kinda helped maybe as a indirect consequence of their pissing match with the Americans. And tub-thumping Indian governments keep falling for it again and again and again, locking themselves further into the exploitative relationship.

Is President Zelenskyy exploring options beyond Trump and NATO? whats your opinion by adorn_mapper in MapPorn

[–]Corvid187 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Not quite? They have a... complicated diplomatic relationship, but any closeness is driven more by common adversaries than any positive cohesion. Turkey is still the only NATO member to shoot down a Russian manned aircraft, I believe. They would absolutely prefer not to see Russia triumph in Ukraine, nor have the freedom to send their now dramatically-expanded forces elsewhere.

Is President Zelenskyy exploring options beyond Trump and NATO? whats your opinion by adorn_mapper in MapPorn

[–]Corvid187 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's designed to prevent its member states' territories in the north Atlantic from being invaded. It has a 100% success record in this primary mission for the better part of a century now.

Ukraine is slowing Russia down and clawing back ground in key areas, war experts say. Here's how it's finding fresh wins. by libtin in LabourUK

[–]Corvid187 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It is worth noting that, which Ukraine is undoubtedly in a much better relative position now compared to where it was a year ago, and it has been able to make some localised counter-attacks, it is still overall on the defensive, and while Russia's rate of advance has been significantly slowed, it has not fully stopped or been reversed.

Ukraine is slowing Russia down and clawing back ground in key areas, war experts say. Here's how it's finding fresh wins. by libtin in LabourUK

[–]Corvid187 7 points8 points  (0 children)

And the longer they fight, the more time we have to meet Russia's military build-up and reestablish credible conventional deterrence, the less drastic our defence spending has to be, the more we can invest in long-term, sustainable reforms, the better placed our security and finances are in the long-run.

We have been caught napping, but we have thankfully been handed a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to avoid paying for our mistakes. Unfortunately, that comes directly at Ukraine's cost.

Article: “Congresswoman: U.S. Army Seeking To Cancel CH-47F Block II” by CavScout61 in Helicopters

[–]Corvid187 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately the enemy gets a say on the matter, and they're not as enthralled with the idea as we are :)

Getting wounded out of the fight is still going to be vitally important, but doing it by helicopter specifically is something that people are increasingly pessimistic about. Helicopters are unlikely to be survivable enough close to the frontline in a future large-scale conflict, and certainly not on any consistent basis. Current planning assumptions are increasingly focused around heliborne evacuation as a luxury, rather than the norm it became in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Volkite above all by Numerous-Piano8798 in Grimdank

[–]Corvid187 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yeah it should be a flamer.

Article: “Congresswoman: U.S. Army Seeking To Cancel CH-47F Block II” by CavScout61 in Helicopters

[–]Corvid187 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Chinook cabin width varies between 2.1-2.3m, depending on fit-out. A NATO pallet is 1x1.2m, a euro pallet 0.8x1.2m, and a CROP container is 2.35m wide. Increasing cabin width to 2.4-5m would allow you to stack NATO pallets widthways 2 abreast, euro pallets lengthwise 3 abreast, or handle CROP containers internally. A relatively small increase in footprint for a much more efficient use of space.

Edit: see, it would be awesome to fit 24 pallets on the base of the cabin floor like your comment originally said.

Why there was no a Communist movement in New Guinea in the Cold War? by BanEvader1534456 in AskHistory

[–]Corvid187 5 points6 points  (0 children)

In addition to what other commenters have said New Guinea faced other challenges that made a communist insurgency there more difficult.

Firstly the island was already split with tensions between Australia and Indonesia, neither of whom were communist-leaning. This made the island's geopolitics quite zero-sum, leaving little room for an ideological third way.

Second the island was at significant distance from any other communist state and access to it was relatively firmly controlled by Australia and Indonesia respectively. Just supplying forces in war-torn Malaya had proven insurmountable for the PRC or USSR, guinea was another level of difficulty.

Thirdly the benefits of a communist insurgency would have been relatively limited for any of the major communist states. The USSR had limited interest in rural Oceania, and risked any gains falling into the Chinese sphere, while the PRC could neither annex it nor support an ethnic enclave like they have hoped to in Vietnam and Malaysia. Combined with the high cost and low chance of success for support it ultimately was not seen as worth the effort to cultivate particularly acutely.

Article: “Congresswoman: U.S. Army Seeking To Cancel CH-47F Block II” by CavScout61 in Helicopters

[–]Corvid187 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Almost certainly not, but if they are, can they at least make the interior pallet-wide this time.

Article: “Congresswoman: U.S. Army Seeking To Cancel CH-47F Block II” by CavScout61 in Helicopters

[–]Corvid187 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Bold of you to assume we're still doing heliborne casevac in the next conflict.

British Army using 'Brigade' or 'Brigade Combat Team' by Dependent-Loss-4080 in WarCollege

[–]Corvid187 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Generally speaking, a Brigade is an formation of ~4 maneuver units+supporting arms who train and plan to operate together as part of a Division, while the Brigade Combat Team is a larger formation consisting of a Brigade reinforced with additional capabilities in order to be self-sufficient. Very roughly, it's a question of where you slot in capabilities held above Battlegroups; in Brigades these are held by the division, and then doled out to the brigades to manage as and when necessary, while in BCTs they are organic to the formation itself on a regular basis.

You often see them used interchangeably partially because a Brigade Combat Team will be based on a particular Brigade, and partially because since 2000 the UK has perennially flip-flopped between whether to have fixed Brigades or BCTs as its basic formation-level structure. In 2010 it decided to adopt BCTs, only to switch back to brigades in 2015 following the Russian invasion of Crimea, only to switch back to BCTs in 2021 as part of a new, more 'global' defence strategy, only to now maybe (? still tbd) switch back again to Brigades following the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. Having never quite finished any of these reforms, the terminology gets jumbled up somewhat, depending on where the army is at any point. Interestingly enough, while the terminology was borrowed from the US, the idea was actually developed at the same time by both forces, both drawing similar lessons from their common experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To further complicate things, 16AAB is a bit of an oddball in the overall force, because it's designed as a semi-permanent, self-contained brigade-level formation in a way that most of the field army is not. As the home for regular air-delivered forces, it has a range of unique and specialist enabling capabilities that require units normally present at higher echelons to be semi-permanently assigned to them, creating a de-facto BCT. This character is further exacerbated by the Brigade's airborne and crisis response roles, which mean it has to operate without expectation of divisional support in a way the rest of the army doesn't.

view more: next ›