Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short.
It really doesn't work like that. Amphibious landings are hard. Very hard. You always want to concentrate the limited amount of men and hardware you can viably transport into one area. So the RN would also concentrate its units in that same area.
Britain doesn't really have specific defences against this kind of threat, but it doesn't need them. You simply don't invade an island nation that has a modern (albeit small) surface fleet, advanced SSNs, capable fast jets, and plenty of friends nearby, not unless you have similar or better technology and a vast force advantage.
I do know that stringing out vessels in a line isn't sensible. However it does give an indication as to the scale of the defensive issue.
No, it doesn’t.
The sea has always been vast. Distributing your forces all over it produces the effect of having nothing.
Congratulations - on discovering the principle of concentration of forces. Which has been standard naval tactics since long before the Spanish Armada.
We know Ireland is quite happy for the UK to defend it (which is a whole other can of worms) and to be frank an Astute class SSN doesn't care if you're heading for Ireland or Great Britain before it puts a torpedo into your hull.
Iceland would be a better target, but still deeply stupid. Good luck being the officer tasked with protecting a bunch of landing ships sitting in harbour in Iceland. Better hope your air defences are up to nailing those inbound F-35s.
#RedStormRising
The Russians don’t have the assets to do that, anymore.
The Russians don’t have the assets to do that at the moment
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
One of the main reasons that Ukraine has been pushed back a little this year, and suffered bad enough casualties that their only offensive was catching the Russians on the hop in Kursk, is that they've been fighting with a major imbalance in artillery ammunition. Just as in WWI, the majority of casualties have been caused by artillery.
If Ukraine can be supplied with greater quantities of ranged ammunition - they've been asking for funding for their domestic drone industry for example - then they can reverse the imbalance in ranged weapons to their advantage. They can destroy Russian munitions before they reach the battlefield, destroy more Russian artillery pieces, and inflict casualties on Russian infantry at a greater distance - reducing their own casualty rate at the same time.
That's the route to victory that also reduces the damage to the current generation of young Ukrainians.
Any damage they can be done to Russian war industry by making India and other countries a better offer to persuade them to prevent supply of components to Russia would also greatly help.
The other being the six month US supply drought over the end of last year.
If Harris is elected, and S Korea changes its policy because of fat Kim's involvement, next spring could look very different.
If Trump is elected, it will be grim for them.
Yep.
Europe and the UK are going to really need to step up in the event the Americans leave the party.
They won't step up, even if they could. Not to the level that would be needed in that event.
They could step up.
There's nothing to stop Europe from making more munitions and sending them to Ukraine.
Indeed, spending on ammunition and consumables has already stepped up sharply from where it was pre Ukraine.
But the question is whether there is the will. And whether some leaders see America pulling back as an excuse to say "Well, the battle is really over, there's no point in us prolonging the agony".
Which I think would be a sick and morally bankrupt thing to do. But there you go.
I heard a number today that artillery ammunition fired Russia:Ukraine is down from a peak 8-9:1 to about 2-3:1.
One factor in that South Korea supplies via the USA ali-shuffle.
If the USA pulls back Korea may supply direct, especially given that DPRK is now in the war.
True but they have compensated with air-launched glide bombs, which can travel tens (hundreds?) of miles and the Ukranians have no defence.
Yes, but they cannot lob that many glide bombs.
The scale of artillery usage is amazing. Russia uses around 10,000 artillery shells a day - a figure that has reportedly been as high as 60,000. Glide bombs pack a much bigger punch, but they need launching from planes, and each plane can only carry a limited number, and do a limited number of sorties a day. Some reports say they fire up to 100 a day.
So the uses are very different: artillery shells are generally shorter range, cheaper, and very tactical and responsive. Glide bombs are longer range, more powerful, but not particularly responsive - particularly if the target needs programming into them on the ground. A more strategic weapon, for use against targets that don't move much.
We know Ireland is quite happy for the UK to defend it (which is a whole other can of worms) and to be frank an Astute class SSN doesn't care if you're heading for Ireland or Great Britain before it puts a torpedo into your hull.
Iceland would be a better target, but still deeply stupid. Good luck being the officer tasked with protecting a bunch of landing ships sitting in harbour in Iceland. Better hope your air defences are up to nailing those inbound F-35s.
#RedStormRising
The Russians don’t have the assets to do that, anymore.
The Russians don’t have the assets to do that at the moment
The transport planes required are long gone - in the novel they were flying IL76s into Iceland every five’s minutes, all day. Literally.
They don’t have tankers or long range modern fighters in enough numbers
The amphibious ships are long gone.
You need to build a whole industrial infrastructure to build these - that’s the work of a decade to build that.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
Watching Trump live giving a speech. Bloody hell the man’s unhinged.
I don't understand why Sky insists on showing the orange buffoon's speeches. Is it a grab for the Gbeebies/reform uk audience? Or just the bedlam effect?
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
One of the main reasons that Ukraine has been pushed back a little this year, and suffered bad enough casualties that their only offensive was catching the Russians on the hop in Kursk, is that they've been fighting with a major imbalance in artillery ammunition. Just as in WWI, the majority of casualties have been caused by artillery.
If Ukraine can be supplied with greater quantities of ranged ammunition - they've been asking for funding for their domestic drone industry for example - then they can reverse the imbalance in ranged weapons to their advantage. They can destroy Russian munitions before they reach the battlefield, destroy more Russian artillery pieces, and inflict casualties on Russian infantry at a greater distance - reducing their own casualty rate at the same time.
That's the route to victory that also reduces the damage to the current generation of young Ukrainians.
Any damage they can be done to Russian war industry by making India and other countries a better offer to persuade them to prevent supply of components to Russia would also greatly help.
The other being the six month US supply drought over the end of last year.
If Harris is elected, and S Korea changes its policy because of fat Kim's involvement, next spring could look very different.
If Trump is elected, it will be grim for them.
Yep.
Europe and the UK are going to really need to step up in the event the Americans leave the party.
They won't step up, even if they could. Not to the level that would be needed in that event.
They could step up.
There's nothing to stop Europe from making more munitions and sending them to Ukraine.
Indeed, spending on ammunition and consumables has already stepped up sharply from where it was pre Ukraine.
But the question is whether there is the will. And whether some leaders see America pulling back as an excuse to say "Well, the battle is really over, there's no point in us prolonging the agony".
Which I think would be a sick and morally bankrupt thing to do. But there you go.
I heard a number today that artillery ammunition fired Russia:Ukraine is down from a peak 8-9:1 to about 2-3:1.
One factor in that South Korea supplies via the USA ali-shuffle.
If the USA pulls back Korea may supply direct, especially given that DPRK is now in the war.
European and Korean Artillery is all well and good but could the Ukrainians feasibly fight on if they lost US satellite and awacs intelligence?
That's a good question amongst many, and I don't know the answer. There are two sides to satellite - intelligence then navigation.
Other countries have AWACS type platforms, and Sweden are supplying 2 x AWACS type ASC 890 planes. I'm not clear when they arrive.
There is also how much is the AWACS capability NATO vs USA, and whether they could restrict the Swedish ones via ITAR - it was announced back in May so that may be squared away already.
Lots of questions.
Another one is whether the USA could/would turn around and restrict the F15s which are already committed by European countries.
And whether anyone would try and stand up to a Trump administration. He's interested in nothing but himself, but what happens if someone on this side of the pond draws a line?
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
He could smuggle them in over weeks and months in the dinghies from France. And launch an Oct7th style attack at key defence and economic infrastructure. In fact he could do that in a number of European countries at once to try and confuse their response, while going for Lithuania. Perhaps combine it with a chemical attack but several grades up from Salisbury in severity. There’s all sorts of things he could do if prepared to play dirty and go for it. Because when he’s done things in the past, we have basically shrugged.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
We know Ireland is quite happy for the UK to defend it (which is a whole other can of worms) and to be frank an Astute class SSN doesn't care if you're heading for Ireland or Great Britain before it puts a torpedo into your hull.
Iceland would be a better target, but still deeply stupid. Good luck being the officer tasked with protecting a bunch of landing ships sitting in harbour in Iceland. Better hope your air defences are up to nailing those inbound F-35s.
#RedStormRising
The Russians don’t have the assets to do that, anymore.
We know Ireland is quite happy for the UK to defend it (which is a whole other can of worms) and to be frank an Astute class SSN doesn't care if you're heading for Ireland or Great Britain before it puts a torpedo into your hull.
Iceland would be a better target, but still deeply stupid. Good luck being the officer tasked with protecting a bunch of landing ships sitting in harbour in Iceland. Better hope your air defences are up to nailing those inbound F-35s.
#RedStormRising
The Russians don’t have the assets to do that, anymore.
We know Ireland is quite happy for the UK to defend it (which is a whole other can of worms) and to be frank an Astute class SSN doesn't care if you're heading for Ireland or Great Britain before it puts a torpedo into your hull.
Iceland would be a better target, but still deeply stupid. Good luck being the officer tasked with protecting a bunch of landing ships sitting in harbour in Iceland. Better hope your air defences are up to nailing those inbound F-35s.
#RedStormRising
The Russians don’t have the assets to do that, anymore.
"You'll receive the Order of Lenin for this!"
That’s The Hunt For Red October. Different book.
A film of Red Storm Rising would be kinda fun.
Give me a ping, Malmesbury. One ping only, please!
Another one is whether the USA could/would turn around and restrict the F15s which are already committed by European countries.
I'm presuming you mean F-35, which is an interesting case. The ALIS system used to maintain F-35s is under Lockheed Martin's control. I don't believe it can actually brick the aircraft, but the US absolutely could use it to prevent European operators from keeping their jets in operation medium-term.
Of course sabotaging critical weapons systems used by allies is pretty close to an act of war and would at the very least result in every F-35 operator urgently looking to dump those aircraft for something the US can't cripple.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Watching Trump live giving a speech. Bloody hell the man’s unhinged.
I don't understand why Sky insists on showing the orange buffoon's speeches. Is it a grab for the Gbeebies/reform uk audience? Or just the bedlam effect?
Because it's news? They shoe Kamala's speeches, don't they?
Don't worry. The number of votes this will shift is approximately zero.
We know Ireland is quite happy for the UK to defend it (which is a whole other can of worms) and to be frank an Astute class SSN doesn't care if you're heading for Ireland or Great Britain before it puts a torpedo into your hull.
Iceland would be a better target, but still deeply stupid. Good luck being the officer tasked with protecting a bunch of landing ships sitting in harbour in Iceland. Better hope your air defences are up to nailing those inbound F-35s.
Ireland could be invaded with 2 pedalos and a flock of seagulls.
I think the last people to invade Iceland were us.
At present I think we just assume that there is no threat to the UK itself. Do we even have our fast jets in hardened shelters?
Another thing for the current Government to think about. At least we now have a Government.
I have my suspicions that many of the cross-channel migration attempts are being 'encouraged' by Russians, or Russian-paid assets. And before anyone says I need to get my tinfoil hat on, Russian misbehaviour on the Polish and Baltic borders - flying immigrants in and transporting them to the borders of those countries - means it is the sort of thing they're already doing.
I have my suspicions that many of the cross-channel migration attempts are being 'encouraged' by Russians, or Russian-paid assets. And before anyone says I need to get my tinfoil hat on, Russian misbehaviour on the Polish and Baltic borders - flying immigrants in and transporting them to the borders of those countries - means it is the sort of thing they're already doing.
Well per the Today programme all the boats are in Western Germany. So an expeditionary force is called for.
But I don’t think the channel crossings have anything to do with Russia. It’s not where the action’s at. An order of magnitude more migrants are making the Mediterranean and Turkish crossings. The channel is an afterthought. We just think it’s a big deal because we’ve not been used to it.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
It is always worth remembering that anything touched by Whitehall or the British government turns to shit. There’s little reason to think our national defence is too different. In WW2, it was when the weight of industrious minds in the private sector entered the military and wider war effort that performance turned around.
Watching Trump live giving a speech. Bloody hell the man’s unhinged.
I don't understand why Sky insists on showing the orange buffoon's speeches. Is it a grab for the Gbeebies/reform uk audience? Or just the bedlam effect?
Because it's news? They shoe Kamala's speeches, don't they?
Don't worry. The number of votes this will shift is approximately zero.
The other good news is other channels are available so these speeches can be happily ignored.
We know Ireland is quite happy for the UK to defend it (which is a whole other can of worms) and to be frank an Astute class SSN doesn't care if you're heading for Ireland or Great Britain before it puts a torpedo into your hull.
Iceland would be a better target, but still deeply stupid. Good luck being the officer tasked with protecting a bunch of landing ships sitting in harbour in Iceland. Better hope your air defences are up to nailing those inbound F-35s.
Ireland could be invaded with 2 pedalos and a flock of seagulls.
I think the last people to invade Iceland were us.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
It is always worth remembering that anything touched by Whitehall or the British government turns to shit. There’s little reason to think our national defence is too different. In WW2, it was when the weight of industrious minds in the private sector entered the military and wider war effort that performance turned around.
I’ve worked in the private sector all my life and can assure you this isn’t a public sector phenomenon.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Alison Brooks write a detailed treatment of Operation Sealion. Based on the war gaming of the invasion over the years at Sandhurst.
19*40* would have been a disaster for the Germans.
I mean, their plan was to send men and lots of horses on river barges, across the Channel. With no radio communication between the barges. And the speed of the barges being less than the speed of the tides and currents. And the freeboard of the barges being measured in inches. And not enough seamen to man the barges. At night….
Oh, and to defend themselves, the soldiers would fire their weapons at “the enemy”
In one test run of the game, 50% casualties occurred in the first wave. Before landing. Before the RN and RAF turned up…
I still think Badenoch is the best choice for the Tories. Yes she’s a dice roll, she can be divisive, undisciplined, all-talk-no-action, gaffe prone etc. But she is different. And she does therefore offer the Tories a wildcard.
I have said before I’m not entirely convinced that the Tories build their voter coalition back by trying to be trendy Cameroon centrists again. At least not right now.
I am not quite sure where the Tories end up under Badenoch. That makes her an interesting prospect.
All these PBers on here saying 'roll the dice on Badenoch' she is a black woman with dreadlocks, looks different. Yet not one of you will vote Tory if she becomes leader.
Badenoch was a Leaver, so will not win back LDs and opposes withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, so will not win back Reform voters and is fanatically anti woke so will not win back voters from Labour or most young people either.
So who apart from wealthy metropolitan Tories like Maude and Gove and Osborne wanting a fashionable leader of their party to talk about at Kensington dinner parties does she actually appeal to?
Well, she rather appeals to me, and I've an allergy to Conservatives in general.
Good evening, everybody.
Good evening Anne (btw, I always take a small piece of pleasure from your polite greetings when you arrive).
As someone who voted Tory in 2001, 05, 10, 15, 17 and 19 but not 24, if there was a GE tomorrow I would vote for a Tory party led by Badenoch; I would probably not vote for a Tory party led by Jenrick. It's NOT because she's a black woman. It's because she's articulate and a thinker and gives reasons to be Conservative. I am agnostic on leavingthe EHCR. But leaving the ECHR doesn't amount to a political philosophy.
Now, I have the luxury of living in a seat where it doesn't matter a shiny shite what I vote. But I am not necessarily unrepresentative. I bet I have equivalents in Bolton NW and Bury N and other places which get to decide the government.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
That’s stuff you read in a bad novel. It bears no relation to any military operation.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
It is always worth remembering that anything touched by Whitehall or the British government turns to shit. There’s little reason to think our national defence is too different. In WW2, it was when the weight of industrious minds in the private sector entered the military and wider war effort that performance turned around.
I’ve worked in the private sector all my life and can assure you this isn’t a public sector phenomenon.
Sure - really good anything much associated with what might be needed in a conflict won't happen based on the past. However the build time of military equipment now is insane, and the speed with which military objectives can be achieved astonishing. So maybe things have changed, and maybe wars will be won and lost just on what you have when you need it. Ukraine after all so nearly fell with a quite small Russian incursion.
Another one is whether the USA could/would turn around and restrict the F15s which are already committed by European countries.
I'm presuming you mean F-35, which is an interesting case. The ALIS system used to maintain F-35s is under Lockheed Martin's control. I don't believe it can actually brick the aircraft, but the US absolutely could use it to prevent European operators from keeping their jets in operation medium-term.
Of course sabotaging critical weapons systems used by allies is pretty close to an act of war and would at the very least result in every F-35 operator urgently looking to dump those aircraft for something the US can't cripple.
No I mean F15s, as being supplied to Ukraine by Norway, NL etc.
They are USA product, and therefore further export is subject to further USA approval. Remember how the Swiss stopped their ammunition being sent to Ukraine by third countries?
Presumably Mr Chump may be able to say no. I'm not sure what happens when approval has been given by President Biden.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
The Royal Navy would have shat all over them, even if the Luftwaffe had tried their best.
Eventually, you'd have had the few German divisions that managed to successfully land surrender.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
It is always worth remembering that anything touched by Whitehall or the British government turns to shit. There’s little reason to think our national defence is too different. In WW2, it was when the weight of industrious minds in the private sector entered the military and wider war effort that performance turned around.
The biggest thing, perhaps, in war is morale. Meaning something more than just being OK with life - a kind of thinking aggressiveness.
During the fall of France, a commander of a squadron of modern fighters - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewoitine_D.520 - lacked only the guns to arm them. He was almost violent in his insistence that it wasn't his job to get them armed into combat. Equally, commanders of field guns refused to use them against tanks - not our job....
At the same period, there was a meeting in Manchester about a possible German invasion. The commander of the heavy AA batteries around the city reported thus
- He'd setup the guns in their subsidiary anti-tank role. Could he please have some more anti-tank ammo?Heavy AA guns were generally very good for this. The famous German 88mm was an AA gun that got pointed at tanks. The Germans were only planning to bring very light tanks for the invasion. A heavy AA shell would have gone through them. Literally.
- He'd also setup to use the guns for long range bombardment. Using the men in his unit who'd served in the artillery, they'd setup firing tables and practised.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
To be fair, he did not have the information we had after the war to see quite how pants Operation Sealion was. And it was pants.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
Before the intelligence reports of what the Germans would try to invade with came in.
The freeboard on the German invasion barges was a foot or 2 at full load. The RN were startled by that - it would mean that a line of destroyers at 35 knots could sink the barges at a range of quarter of a mile, just with their wash!
Watching Trump live giving a speech. Bloody hell the man’s unhinged.
I don't understand why Sky insists on showing the orange buffoon's speeches. Is it a grab for the Gbeebies/reform uk audience? Or just the bedlam effect?
He may shortly be elected President of the USA. Not insignificant. I'm sure there's plenty of Phil Space on 24 hour news too.
I have my suspicions that many of the cross-channel migration attempts are being 'encouraged' by Russians, or Russian-paid assets. And before anyone says I need to get my tinfoil hat on, Russian misbehaviour on the Polish and Baltic borders - flying immigrants in and transporting them to the borders of those countries - means it is the sort of thing they're already doing.
Point 3 which came up soon afterwards on the podcast was that the Moldovan Government has identified that Russia bought about 300k votes, or 10-20%.
They have already fined 400 of them (since they have from the banks where the money went) $1500 each, which is about 10x what they were paid.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
To be fair, he did not have the information we had after the war to see quite how pants Operation Sealion was. And it was pants.
My personal favourite was putting a Bavarian engineer regiment in charge of building improvised landing craft.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
To be fair, he did not have the information we had after the war to see quite how pants Operation Sealion was. And it was pants.
Yes, and @Malmesbury makes points along those line too. The Germans clearly thought it impossible as well. The difference between invasion and not an invasion wasn't so great though, and at the time we had a most astonishing navy.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
To be fair, he did not have the information we had after the war to see quite how pants Operation Sealion was. And it was pants.
My personal favourite was putting a Bavarian engineer regiment in charge of building improvised landing craft.
Mine was the way the army wanted a massively broad front on the south coast, whilst the navy wanted as narrow a front as possible. Neither really wanted to give in, but both of their desires were understandable; the army wanted a broad front to push from, whilst the navy knew it could only realistically guard a narrow channel across the channel.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
One of the main reasons that Ukraine has been pushed back a little this year, and suffered bad enough casualties that their only offensive was catching the Russians on the hop in Kursk, is that they've been fighting with a major imbalance in artillery ammunition. Just as in WWI, the majority of casualties have been caused by artillery.
If Ukraine can be supplied with greater quantities of ranged ammunition - they've been asking for funding for their domestic drone industry for example - then they can reverse the imbalance in ranged weapons to their advantage. They can destroy Russian munitions before they reach the battlefield, destroy more Russian artillery pieces, and inflict casualties on Russian infantry at a greater distance - reducing their own casualty rate at the same time.
That's the route to victory that also reduces the damage to the current generation of young Ukrainians.
Any damage they can be done to Russian war industry by making India and other countries a better offer to persuade them to prevent supply of components to Russia would also greatly help.
The other being the six month US supply drought over the end of last year.
If Harris is elected, and S Korea changes its policy because of fat Kim's involvement, next spring could look very different.
If Trump is elected, it will be grim for them.
Yep.
Europe and the UK are going to really need to step up in the event the Americans leave the party.
They won't step up, even if they could. Not to the level that would be needed in that event.
They could step up.
There's nothing to stop Europe from making more munitions and sending them to Ukraine.
Indeed, spending on ammunition and consumables has already stepped up sharply from where it was pre Ukraine.
But the question is whether there is the will. And whether some leaders see America pulling back as an excuse to say "Well, the battle is really over, there's no point in us prolonging the agony".
Which I think would be a sick and morally bankrupt thing to do. But there you go.
I heard a number today that artillery ammunition fired Russia:Ukraine is down from a peak 8-9:1 to about 2-3:1.
One factor in that South Korea supplies via the USA ali-shuffle.
If the USA pulls back Korea may supply direct, especially given that DPRK is now in the war.
True but they have compensated with air-launched glide bombs, which can travel tens (hundreds?) of miles and the Ukranians have no defence.
The cost per launch of those has to be 10 or even 100x that of artillery, and their accuracy and impact fairly low, so how much of a difference can they make?
Glide Bombs are very accurate, but they are also SatNav dependent aiui.
Russia has it's own mackled-up glide bombs, which are kits fitted to iron bombs.
AIUI their current tactics are to send in teams of 10 conscripts, motivated by an expectation of being shot if they refuse, who are then shot down by Ukrainians from their fortified defences.
This having revealed where the defensive infrastructure is, it gets 500kg, 1000kg or 3000kg glide bombs dropped on it.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
To be fair, he did not have the information we had after the war to see quite how pants Operation Sealion was. And it was pants.
My personal favourite was putting a Bavarian engineer regiment in charge of building improvised landing craft.
Mine was the way the army wanted a massively broad front on the south coast, whilst the navy wanted as narrow a front as possible. Neither really wanted to give in, but both of their desires were understandable; the army wanted a broad front to push from, whilst the navy knew it could only realistically guard a narrow channel across the channel.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
To be fair, he did not have the information we had after the war to see quite how pants Operation Sealion was. And it was pants.
Yes, and @Malmesbury makes points along those line too. The Germans clearly thought it impossible as well. The difference between invasion and not an invasion wasn't so great though, and at the time we had a most astonishing navy.
And of course, immediately after Dunkirk, the British army was here.
Genuine question: is the Osborne endorsement "crucial"? What is his current relevance in the Tory party? He feels something of a figure from a different, distant, era.
Genuine question: is the Osborne endorsement "crucial"? What is his current relevance in the Tory party? He feels something of a figure from a different, distant, era.
Genuine question: is the Osborne endorsement "crucial"? What is his current relevance in the Tory party? He feels something of a figure from a different, distant, era.
Hard to say - he’s been out of front line politics for a while. Bit like the interventions that Lawson did over the years, possibly.
Probably not harmful and might persuade a few Cameronite types.
A spot of amateur travel writing: I am in the Ralph Abercombie, Manchester. It sits between worlds. Everyone in my sight is male, white, 25-55. The beer is quite good. The panelling is dark wood, patterned glass. The walls still hold the faint stains of the pre-smoking-ban era. There is a large picture of the Peterloo Massacre on the walls - which happened on this very spot - but it occupies noone's interest. A darts match is on one telly, a football match on another; but the clientele are more intetested in their own conversations. 'Down down" by Status Quo has just been supplanted by "Sonethings Gotten Hold of my Heart" by Gene Pitney. Outside, the entire block has been demolished, with the exception of this pub, and cranes stand erecting its replacement. Will the yuppies who live above us in 24 months' time supplant the Deanos that frequent the place now?
I’m not hostile to the idea of the UK apologising for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, and if you skim through the Caricom report, there’s actually some reasonable stuff in there.
But the word reparations is very commonly understood to mean monies paid by defeated nations to compensate for war damage.
And we even have a number (helpfully calculated by the University of the West Indies and the American Society of International Law): £18.8 trillion.
Just 8 times Britain’s total GDP.
As I posted on the other thread, Britain has become the global cuck, with Chagos the other example.
The fact that commentators inside the UK seriously entertain this shows a country that’s completely lost its self-confidence.
We know Ireland is quite happy for the UK to defend it (which is a whole other can of worms) and to be frank an Astute class SSN doesn't care if you're heading for Ireland or Great Britain before it puts a torpedo into your hull.
Iceland would be a better target, but still deeply stupid. Good luck being the officer tasked with protecting a bunch of landing ships sitting in harbour in Iceland. Better hope your air defences are up to nailing those inbound F-35s.
#RedStormRising
The Russians don’t have the assets to do that, anymore.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
No, he knew very well that the Nazis could not invade, but for political reasons he portrayed the situation otherwise.
Genuine question: is the Osborne endorsement "crucial"? What is his current relevance in the Tory party? He feels something of a figure from a different, distant, era.
It's just TSE teasing.
Well yes obvs, that is TSE's default setting. But it's an interesting question, anyway. Osborne used to be one of the biggest beasts in the Tory party but the way people from that era have faded from view is really quite striking. Is it even the same party anymore? 2016-22 feels like a structural break.
My wife looks at the headlines from AOL. They allow comments and sometimes get 20 odd on a story. Today they have a story about Starmer and the various tax proposals following his comments about a working man today. It now has over 500 comments. People are incandescent. She has never seen anything even close.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
A member of the Russian National Guard was killed recently in Grozny, and three Russian soldiers killed elsewhere in Chechnya in an attack on their Ural truck.
Perhaps it won't amount to anything, but it could be the start of major trouble for Putin within the borders of Russia.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
No, he knew very well that the Nazis could not invade, but for political reasons he portrayed the situation otherwise.
Something you've read, or just your opinion, or both? (You may be right, although my view is that he had a real and well-founded fear. Curious as to your source)
I’m not hostile to the idea of the UK apologising for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, and if you skim through the Caricom report, there’s actually some reasonable stuff in there.
But the word reparations is very commonly understood to mean monies paid by defeated nations to compensate for war damage.
And we even have a number (helpfully calculated by the University of the West Indies and the American Society of International Law): £18.8 trillion.
Just 8 times Britain’s total GDP.
As I posted on the other thread, Britain has become the global cuck, with Chagos the other example.
The fact that commentators inside the UK seriously entertain this shows a country that’s completely lost its self-confidence.
We’ll all be faced with a choice soon. France has already experienced it in the Sahara and Sahel, and lost decisively. Pay money - essentially protection money, but call it reparations or whatever - or see all those former colonies become geopolitical and financial satellites of China.
It’s Chinese promises of largesse and investment that has given these commonwealth territories the confidence to do what they’re doing.
This is how it must have felt being the Dutch of Spanish in the Caribbean in the 1700s, as the British started picking apart their empires island by island.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
To be fair, he did not have the information we had after the war to see quite how pants Operation Sealion was. And it was pants.
Yes, and @Malmesbury makes points along those line too. The Germans clearly thought it impossible as well. The difference between invasion and not an invasion wasn't so great though, and at the time we had a most astonishing navy.
And of course, immediately after Dunkirk, the British army was here.
But not all of it, and not the kit left behind. Though IIRC the Canadians had already started coming over, and we shouldn't forget the Poles in particular amongst various European mainland contingents.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
The Royal Navy would have shat all over them, even if the Luftwaffe had tried their best.
Eventually, you'd have had the few German divisions that managed to successfully land surrender.
A German division was around 17000 men, if they’d successfully landed a few of them they might have been in with a shout. Anzio was initially only 36000.
The geopolitical outlook for Britain really hasn’t been this dark since the 1930s.
Trump, if he wins, is about to surrender Ukraine to the Russians. His policy, if he does not cause an actual trade war, is to undermine the liberal and democratic principles that underpin the Western order.
The Brics conference is certainly morphing from its slightly arbitrary origins to be a nascent challenge to the dollar hegemony.
At home, one British elite seem to be giving up on the concept of British power even as the world grows ever more Hobbesian. The other elite see Britain’s future in maintaining hostility with our nearest neighbours.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
No, he knew very well that the Nazis could not invade, but for political reasons he portrayed the situation otherwise.
Something you've read, or just your opinion, or both? (You may be right, although my view is that he had a real and well-founded fear. Curious as to your source)
Well, Hitler did launch a successful seaborne invasion of Norway just weeks earlier (notwithstanding the loss of cruiser Blucher and several destroyers).
I’m not hostile to the idea of the UK apologising for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, and if you skim through the Caricom report, there’s actually some reasonable stuff in there.
But the word reparations is very commonly understood to mean monies paid by defeated nations to compensate for war damage.
And we even have a number (helpfully calculated by the University of the West Indies and the American Society of International Law): £18.8 trillion.
Just 8 times Britain’s total GDP.
As I posted on the other thread, Britain has become the global cuck, with Chagos the other example.
The fact that commentators inside the UK seriously entertain this shows a country that’s completely lost its self-confidence.
Starmer’s approach to international affairs is to bend over, and hope that the other guy uses lube.
He has a punishment period of 20 years. He has been in custody since 2019 so he will not even be eligible to apply for parole until 2039. Even then he needs to persuade the parole board that he is safe to release. Don't see that happen any time, well, ever.
Really interesting idea that you can be guilty of manslaughter of someone when you have not even been in their country.
The geopolitical outlook for Britain really hasn’t been this dark since the 1930s.
Trump, if he wins, is about to surrender Ukraine to the Russians. His policy, if he does not cause an actual trade war, is to undermine the liberal and democratic principles that underpin the Western order.
The Brics conference is certainly morphing from its slightly arbitrary origins to be a nascent challenge to the dollar hegemony.
At home, one British elite seem to be giving up on the concept of British power even as the world grows ever more Hobbesian. The other elite see Britain’s future in maintaining hostility with our nearest neighbours.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
No, he knew very well that the Nazis could not invade, but for political reasons he portrayed the situation otherwise.
Something you've read, or just your opinion, or both? (You may be right, although my view is that he had a real and well-founded fear. Curious as to your source)
Read vast amounts over the years. Main info of late from the we have ways podcast - James Holland and Al Murray. Churchill would know full well how strong the navy was.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
The Royal Navy would have shat all over them, even if the Luftwaffe had tried their best.
Eventually, you'd have had the few German divisions that managed to successfully land surrender.
A German division was around 17000 men, if they’d successfully landed a few of them they might have been in with a shout. Anzio was initially only 36000.
17,000 men, without thousands of tons of equipment and supplies is just 17,000 POWs waiting to happen.
The best they could manage in the Sandhurst games was to get the initial wave ashore. Whom then got pushed into the sea. And that was with the umpires deliberately giving the Germans breaks to make it more interesting.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
The Royal Navy would have shat all over them, even if the Luftwaffe had tried their best.
Eventually, you'd have had the few German divisions that managed to successfully land surrender.
A German division was around 17000 men, if they’d successfully landed a few of them they might have been in with a shout. Anzio was initially only 36000.
Secondly, even when he is released, AIUI such people have *very* tight restrictions on what they can do on the Internet, with breaking those rules leading to big problems.
ISTR one of the Bulger killers getting recalled to prison over something he had viewed onlline?
I’m not hostile to the idea of the UK apologising for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, and if you skim through the Caricom report, there’s actually some reasonable stuff in there.
But the word reparations is very commonly understand to mean monies paid by defeated nations to compensate for war damage.
And we even have a number (helpfully calculated by the University of the West Indies and the American Society of International Law): £18.8 trillion.
Just 8 times Britain’s total GDP.
As I posted on the other thread, Britain has become the global cuck, with Chagos the other example.
The fact that commentators inside the UK seriously entertain this shows a country that’s completely lost its self-confidence.
I'm far fom convinced.
Starting with slavery reparations, we all know it won't happen, the Caribbean countries know this as well. We can apologise and express regret, remorse or whatever but it won't make a scintilla of difference. History is replete with "rights" and "wrongs" - knowledge and understanding of them is vital and needs to be an integral part of our history and the one thing we can and should do is work hard to eradicate modern slavery, people trafficing and the like.
As for "self confidence", after a long period of rule by one party, we now have another party in power. Those who enjoyed for an extended period the comfy chair of Opposition have now had to learn the discomfort of sitting on the spike of Government while those for whom power or the support of those in power gave an exaggerated importance to their view/commentary/analysis are now learning however hard or loud or long they shout no one is listening any more.
He has a punishment period of 20 years. He has been in custody since 2019 so he will not even be eligible to apply for parole until 2039. Even then he needs to persuade the parole board that he is safe to release. Don't see that happen any time, well, ever.
Really interesting idea that you can be guilty of manslaughter of someone when you have not even been in their country.
Remote manslaughter? Why not?
1) send a bomb in the post. 2) cause their computer to explode. Etc
IIRC people have been prosecuted for encouraging/bullying people into suicide, before this. Given the internet, what does distance mean, in this context?
The geopolitical outlook for Britain really hasn’t been this dark since the 1930s.
Trump, if he wins, is about to surrender Ukraine to the Russians. His policy, if he does not cause an actual trade war, is to undermine the liberal and democratic principles that underpin the Western order.
The Brics conference is certainly morphing from its slightly arbitrary origins to be a nascent challenge to the dollar hegemony.k
At home, one British elite seem to be giving up on the concept of British power even as the world grows ever more Hobbesian. The other elite see Britain’s future in maintaining hostility with our nearest neighbours.
Brace.
Cheer up. There’s Threads on iPlayer and Dr Strangelove on the west end if you need light relief.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
No, he knew very well that the Nazis could not invade, but for political reasons he portrayed the situation otherwise.
Something you've read, or just your opinion, or both? (You may be right, although my view is that he had a real and well-founded fear. Curious as to your source)
Read vast amounts over the years. Main info of late from the we have ways podcast - James Holland and Al Murray. Churchill would know full well how strong the navy was.
The various war cabinet diaries and minutes bear this out.
I can’t remember who quoted Earl St Vincent - “I do not say they cannot come. I say they cannot come by sea.”
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
It is always worth remembering that anything touched by Whitehall or the British government turns to shit. There’s little reason to think our national defence is too different. In WW2, it was when the weight of industrious minds in the private sector entered the military and wider war effort that performance turned around.
I’ve worked in the private sector all my life and can assure you this isn’t a public sector phenomenon.
It’s because people are promoted to the level above their ability. With some people, that’s the level of assistant filing clerk.
I’m not hostile to the idea of the UK apologising for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, and if you skim through the Caricom report, there’s actually some reasonable stuff in there.
But the word reparations is very commonly understood to mean monies paid by defeated nations to compensate for war damage.
And we even have a number (helpfully calculated by the University of the West Indies and the American Society of International Law): £18.8 trillion.
Just 8 times Britain’s total GDP.
As I posted on the other thread, Britain has become the global cuck, with Chagos the other example.
The fact that commentators inside the UK seriously entertain this shows a country that’s completely lost its self-confidence.
Starmer’s approach to international affairs is to bend over, and hope that the other guy uses lube.
I’m not hostile to the idea of the UK apologising for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, and if you skim through the Caricom report, there’s actually some reasonable stuff in there.
But the word reparations is very commonly understood to mean monies paid by defeated nations to compensate for war damage.
And we even have a number (helpfully calculated by the University of the West Indies and the American Society of International Law): £18.8 trillion.
Just 8 times Britain’s total GDP.
As I posted on the other thread, Britain has become the global cuck, with Chagos the other example.
The fact that commentators inside the UK seriously entertain this shows a country that’s completely lost its self-confidence.
Starmer’s approach to international affairs is to bend over, and hope that the other guy uses lube.
The geopolitical outlook for Britain really hasn’t been this dark since the 1930s.
Trump, if he wins, is about to surrender Ukraine to the Russians. His policy, if he does not cause an actual trade war, is to undermine the liberal and democratic principles that underpin the Western order.
The Brics conference is certainly morphing from its slightly arbitrary origins to be a nascent challenge to the dollar hegemony.
At home, one British elite seem to be giving up on the concept of British power even as the world grows ever more Hobbesian. The other elite see Britain’s future in maintaining hostility with our nearest neighbours.
Brace.
You get societies where the elites cease to believe that their State has any reason to exist, like Poland in 1772, Venice in 1797, or France in 1940.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
It is always worth remembering that anything touched by Whitehall or the British government turns to shit. There’s little reason to think our national defence is too different. In WW2, it was when the weight of industrious minds in the private sector entered the military and wider war effort that performance turned around.
I’ve worked in the private sector all my life and can assure you this isn’t a public sector phenomenon.
It’s because people are promoted to the level above their ability. With some people, that’s the level of assistant filing clerk.
That’s universal.
Reading Mitrokhin on the KGB in the 1980s… I’m pretty sure I worked there… it’s the descriptions of meetings about meetings…
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
Not quite what Churchill thought though.
No, he knew very well that the Nazis could not invade, but for political reasons he portrayed the situation otherwise.
Something you've read, or just your opinion, or both? (You may be right, although my view is that he had a real and well-founded fear. Curious as to your source)
Read vast amounts over the years. Main info of late from the we have ways podcast - James Holland and Al Murray. Churchill would know full well how strong the navy was.
The various war cabinet diaries and minutes bear this out.
I can’t remember who quoted Earl St Vincent - “I do not say they cannot come. I say they cannot come by sea.”
At heart Hitler was a continentalist. He thought in terms of land warfare in Europe and had no understanding of Britain's sea power, trade links and the power of the empire. He had no plans for invading England. He mainly hoped he wouldn't need to invade. Sea lion doesn't even deserve the term half-baked. There is and always was a strand of nonsense about our ww2 history. We stood alone...apart from the empire and rather a lot of help from a not very neutral USA...
A German division was around 17000 men, if they’d successfully landed a few of them they might have been in with a shout. Anzio was initially only 36000.
Getting men ashore is only the start. You need to keep them supplied and protected, which in practice means controlling the air and sea. Soldiers being strafed from the air and bombarded by heavy naval gunfire from ships off shore are not going to last long.
Germany never had that control and was never going to get it, which is why Sealion was always an 'ambitious' plan.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
The Royal Navy would have shat all over them, even if the Luftwaffe had tried their best.
Eventually, you'd have had the few German divisions that managed to successfully land surrender.
A German division was around 17000 men, if they’d successfully landed a few of them they might have been in with a shout. Anzio was initially only 36000.
17,000 men, without thousands of tons of equipment and supplies is just 17,000 POWs waiting to happen.
The best they could manage in the Sandhurst games was to get the initial wave ashore. Whom then got pushed into the sea. And that was with the umpires deliberately giving the Germans breaks to make it more interesting.
I’m just pointing out ‘a few divisions’ is not insignificant. Also the Luftwaffe might have been better sacrificing their Stukas supporting a landing and blasting the RN rather than frittering them away on fleabite daylight raids.
He has a punishment period of 20 years. He has been in custody since 2019 so he will not even be eligible to apply for parole until 2039. Even then he needs to persuade the parole board that he is safe to release. Don't see that happen any time, well, ever.
Really interesting idea that you can be guilty of manslaughter of someone when you have not even been in their country.
Remote manslaughter? Why not?
1) send a bomb in the post. 2) cause their computer to explode. Etc
IIRC people have been prosecuted for encouraging/bullying people into suicide, before this. Given the internet, what does distance mean, in this context?
I've never come across it before. Obviously sending a bomb the chain of causation is pretty straightforward. But bullying someone so that they end up shooting themselves? I would have thought that was a novus actus interveniens. I can see the principle but its a interesting idea. This guy pleaded guilty so it was not tested.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
The Royal Navy would have shat all over them, even if the Luftwaffe had tried their best.
Eventually, you'd have had the few German divisions that managed to successfully land surrender.
A German division was around 17000 men, if they’d successfully landed a few of them they might have been in with a shout. Anzio was initially only 36000.
I just read that article on the prospects for Operation Sealion.
I must say that it's a great shame the Germans didn't give it a go.
Of course, the Russian dead and injured aren't from Moscow and St Petersburg. As seems always to be the case in Russia, it is the poorest provinces that are bearing the cost of the center's ambitions.
But Russia doesn't have an unlimited supply of young men.
In June, 98,600 people were born in Russia. So, rounding, we're talking about 49,000 male babies.
They're losing 30,000 people per month - killed, captured and wounded - in Ukraine.
If you compare this to the British losses on the Western Front in the first World World War, you're looking at around 40,000 male babies per month, against 20,000 casualties.
So, in the First World War, the British were losing the equivalent of half a month's births on the battlefield. The Russians, in Ukraine, are at 60%.
Ukraine has similar demographics of course, from a smaller base, with people oversees to boot - which is probably why many are downbeat on their prospects in most offensive phases, now the Russians have seemingly ridden themselves of the highest amount of incomptence.
Russia very rarely loses wars on the battlefield. Much more often, it loses them on the home front. That has to be Ukraine's grand strategy here too. The Kremlin is overheating its economy because of war efforts and in the short term that will also bring some popularity but there will be a price to pay (literally) as inflation increasingly bites, as it will.
Obviously, with a Trump presidency, Putin need worry less about Western retaliation to war crimes in terms of support for Ukraine, sanctions and so on, and presumably that's his plan: bomb Ukraine more. But it's not worked so far and people are resilient in such situations.
And anyway, by the spring offensive it will be a question of which way will President Vance go. (Assuming Putin doesn't have the dirt on him too...CCTV of his sofa?)
Vance has been even more vocally anti-Ukraine than Trump.
Whilst there's no great threat to the UK, I'm pretty sure that Putin could invade us after Guy Fawkes night, and seize London. The Russian navy is no great shakes, but ours is almost an absence in force. It wouldn't hold of course - the Russians would have to fall back under a wave of soup thrown by odd people and beardy types clapping them far too firmly on the back. But, you know, just saying.
No chance. The last Russian naval victory was in the age of sail. Pathetic as our defences are after years of Tory neglect, the Royal Navy and RAF would sink their rustbuckets easily. The Ukranians have swept them from most of the Black Sea with no Navy at all..
Suppose you string out the RN in a big long line and imagine that each ship can defend say 20 miles of coast - we're still well short. The RAF has some crazily small number of combat aircraft.
Look, I can't really judge, but it seems quite clear to me that we spend billions on the illusion of having a defence whereas the reality is that we have almost none at all.
The Russian Navy never had much force projection.
Their surface navy (the bit that still floats) is covered with big, liquid fueled missiles. Which exposed very nicely when hit, as the Ukrainians demonstrated. Similar reasons to why their tanks throw their turrets…
Their one carrier is completely broken and can’t sail. And before you start the jokes, we have a carrier at sea. The F-35 on board are generations beyond anything Russian.
Their sub fleet is out of service.
Their amphibious landing capability is now next to nil.
So they can’t get to the U.K., can’t defend themselves on the way here and can’t land anything when they arrive. Aside from that…
Oh, and you don’t defend the U.K. by creating a picket line round the country (every 20 miles etc). As Nelson pointed out when he was in charge of the Channel Fleet, that’s not how it works
Ok, so just for the hell of it, what would you suggest would happen if Putin decided to try to seize London? RN sweeping the waves, and nothing more to be said?
His navy, such as it is, would be sunk in the Skaggerack.
So a first strike by NATO? Just 10k Russian troops on a holiday cruise and you sink them? I know such scenarios are outlandish and unrealistic, but say it was just a thousand Russian special forces - seize a Scottish airbase, fly in more troops. It wouldn't work - it'd be a horrible defeat for Russia, but the line between it working and not working is very far from where it should be.
You think there are 10,000 Russian special forces troops still alive and not tied down in trying to keep the Ukrainian invasion going?
Well I said ' a thousand'.
This is starting to sound like those comic Internet threads where the Argentina crash land Boeing 747s of troops on the Falklands.
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops? 2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port? 3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport? 4. Could Putin fly in more troops? 5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
We are now at The Alien Space Bats version of Operation Sealion.
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
Ah - the 1914 and 1939 argument. They worked out well.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Had the Germans launched a seaborne invasion, it would have been a turkey shoot.
The Royal Navy would have shat all over them, even if the Luftwaffe had tried their best.
Eventually, you'd have had the few German divisions that managed to successfully land surrender.
A German division was around 17000 men, if they’d successfully landed a few of them they might have been in with a shout. Anzio was initially only 36000.
17,000 men, without thousands of tons of equipment and supplies is just 17,000 POWs waiting to happen.
The best they could manage in the Sandhurst games was to get the initial wave ashore. Whom then got pushed into the sea. And that was with the umpires deliberately giving the Germans breaks to make it more interesting.
I’m just pointing out ‘a few divisions’ is not insignificant. Also the Luftwaffe might have been better sacrificing their Stukas supporting a landing and blasting the RN rather than frittering them away on fleabite daylight raids.
A few divisions is insignificant, without a lot of logistics.
The Stukas couldn’t hit ships in 1940 - pretty much at all. It was as a result of this failure, that a special group was setup to learn how. Which was then sent to the Med in 1941-42….
He has a punishment period of 20 years. He has been in custody since 2019 so he will not even be eligible to apply for parole until 2039. Even then he needs to persuade the parole board that he is safe to release. Don't see that happen any time, well, ever.
Really interesting idea that you can be guilty of manslaughter of someone when you have not even been in their country.
Remote manslaughter? Why not?
1) send a bomb in the post. 2) cause their computer to explode. Etc
IIRC people have been prosecuted for encouraging/bullying people into suicide, before this. Given the internet, what does distance mean, in this context?
I've never come across it before. Obviously sending a bomb the chain of causation is pretty straightforward. But bullying someone so that they end up shooting themselves? I would have thought that was a novus actus interveniens. I can see the principle but its a interesting idea. This guy pleaded guilty so it was not tested.
I can’t find the cases to hand, but people have been prosecuted for it in the US, I’m pretty sure.
Comments
As demonstrated at Kyiv airport and elsewhere, unsupported and unresupplied “special forces” just turning up are dead meat against even vague resistance.
Special forces aren’t magic ninjas. They are specialist recon, mostly. With a very small scale ability to undertake heroic, knife-in-your-teeth operations.
The scale of artillery usage is amazing. Russia uses around 10,000 artillery shells a day - a figure that has reportedly been as high as 60,000. Glide bombs pack a much bigger punch, but they need launching from planes, and each plane can only carry a limited number, and do a limited number of sorties a day. Some reports say they fire up to 100 a day.
So the uses are very different: artillery shells are generally shorter range, cheaper, and very tactical and responsive. Glide bombs are longer range, more powerful, but not particularly responsive - particularly if the target needs programming into them on the ground. A more strategic weapon, for use against targets that don't move much.
They don’t have tankers or long range modern fighters in enough numbers
The amphibious ships are long gone.
You need to build a whole industrial infrastructure to build these - that’s the work of a decade to build that.
Ok lets step through this
1. Could Putin find 1k special forces troops?
2. Cold Putin find some barges or the like with those troops on them to nip into a Scottish port?
3. Could those troops swiftly find and seize and airport?
4. Could Putin fly in more troops?
5. Could the assembled force push south and seize quite a lot of things?
To all of the above the answer is probably yes.
Happily
6. Could this be sustained?
Is a fairly clear 'no'.
Other countries have AWACS type platforms, and Sweden are supplying 2 x AWACS type ASC 890 planes. I'm not clear when they arrive.
There is also how much is the AWACS capability NATO vs USA, and whether they could restrict the Swedish ones via ITAR - it was announced back in May so that may be squared away already.
Lots of questions.
Another one is whether the USA could/would turn around and restrict the F15s which are already committed by European countries.
And whether anyone would try and stand up to a Trump administration. He's interested in nothing but himself, but what happens if someone on this side of the pond draws a line?
I notice the IDF are killing people again.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/en/football/friendlies-women-s-international/england-w-v-germany-w-betting-33715832
The ASBs were invented by the late, great Alison Brooks, an authority on invasion plans for the U.K.
Their place is to posit/explain insane actions by invaders and the opposition.
Such as “the Army, RN and Airforce took a three day holiday. Until the Germans got ashore. To be sporting.”
We’re watching the Colleen Rooney Wagatha thing.
Well I saw ‘we’, my wife has it on and I’m just looking at YouTube.
A film of Red Storm Rising would be kinda fun.
1 - Russia supplied targeting information on international shipping to Houthis.
2 - Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Putin since late 2022.
Via WSJ investigations, discussed on the Ukraine the Latest podcast today.
https://youtu.be/fnPRDMo-BQM?t=558
Of course sabotaging critical weapons systems used by allies is pretty close to an act of war and would at the very least result in every F-35 operator urgently looking to dump those aircraft for something the US can't cripple.
In 1939 if the Germans had chosen a very high risk invasion then it's far from clear that they may not have succeeded.
The idea of Putin attacking the UK is obviously daft, but being blindsided is dafter still. I don't believe for a moment that you imagine that our armed forces are up to the task of defending us. They should be, but they aren't. Much of the shortfall is just horrible budget mismanagement, the rest mostly ghastly management generally, and some element is underfunding.
Don't worry. The number of votes this will shift is approximately zero.
I think the last people to invade Iceland were us.
At present I think we just assume that there is no threat to the UK itself. Do we even have our fast jets in hardened shelters?
Another thing for the current Government to think about. At least we now have a Government.
What happened to the fertiliser ship?
I have my suspicions that many of the cross-channel migration attempts are being 'encouraged' by Russians, or Russian-paid assets. And before anyone says I need to get my tinfoil hat on, Russian misbehaviour on the Polish and Baltic borders - flying immigrants in and transporting them to the borders of those countries - means it is the sort of thing they're already doing.
But I don’t think the channel crossings have anything to do with Russia. It’s not where the action’s at. An order of magnitude more migrants are making the Mediterranean and Turkish crossings. The channel is an afterthought. We just think it’s a big deal because we’ve not been used to it.
19*40* would have been a disaster for the Germans.
I mean, their plan was to send men and lots of horses on river barges, across the Channel. With no radio communication between the barges. And the speed of the barges being less than the speed of the tides and currents. And the freeboard of the barges being measured in inches. And not enough seamen to man the barges. At night….
Oh, and to defend themselves, the soldiers would fire their weapons at “the enemy”
In one test run of the game, 50% casualties occurred in the first wave. Before landing. Before the RN and RAF turned up…
https://www.philmasters.org.uk/SF/Sealion.htm
As someone who voted Tory in 2001, 05, 10, 15, 17 and 19 but not 24, if there was a GE tomorrow I would vote for a Tory party led by Badenoch; I would probably not vote for a Tory party led by Jenrick.
It's NOT because she's a black woman. It's because she's articulate and a thinker and gives reasons to be Conservative.
I am agnostic on leavingthe EHCR. But leaving the ECHR doesn't amount to a political philosophy.
Now, I have the luxury of living in a seat where it doesn't matter a shiny shite what I vote. But I am not necessarily unrepresentative. I bet I have equivalents in Bolton NW and Bury N and other places which get to decide the government.
They are USA product, and therefore further export is subject to further USA approval. Remember how the Swiss stopped their ammunition being sent to Ukraine by third countries?
Presumably Mr Chump may be able to say no. I'm not sure what happens when approval has been given by President Biden.
Eventually, you'd have had the few German divisions that managed to successfully land surrender.
During the fall of France, a commander of a squadron of modern fighters - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewoitine_D.520 - lacked only the guns to arm them. He was almost violent in his insistence that it wasn't his job to get them armed into combat. Equally, commanders of field guns refused to use them against tanks - not our job....
At the same period, there was a meeting in Manchester about a possible German invasion. The commander of the heavy AA batteries around the city reported thus
- He'd setup the guns in their subsidiary anti-tank role. Could he please have some more anti-tank ammo?Heavy AA guns were generally very good for this. The famous German 88mm was an AA gun that got pointed at tanks. The Germans were only planning to bring very light tanks for the invasion. A heavy AA shell would have gone through them. Literally.
- He'd also setup to use the guns for long range bombardment. Using the men in his unit who'd served in the artillery, they'd setup firing tables and practised.
The freeboard on the German invasion barges was a foot or 2 at full load. The RN were startled by that - it would mean that a line of destroyers at 35 knots could sink the barges at a range of quarter of a mile, just with their wash!
They have already fined 400 of them (since they have from the banks where the money went) $1500 each, which is about 10x what they were paid.
Russia has it's own mackled-up glide bombs, which are kits fitted to iron bombs.
AIUI their current tactics are to send in teams of 10 conscripts, motivated by an expectation of being shot if they refuse, who are then shot down by Ukrainians from their fortified defences.
This having revealed where the defensive infrastructure is, it gets 500kg, 1000kg or 3000kg glide bombs dropped on it.
Starmer is a fucking idiot.
Probably not harmful and might persuade a few Cameronite types.
I am in the Ralph Abercombie, Manchester. It sits between worlds. Everyone in my sight is male, white, 25-55. The beer is quite good. The panelling is dark wood, patterned glass. The walls still hold the faint stains of the pre-smoking-ban era. There is a large picture of the Peterloo Massacre on the walls - which happened on this very spot - but it occupies noone's interest. A darts match is on one telly, a football match on another; but the clientele are more intetested in their own conversations. 'Down down" by Status Quo has just been supplanted by "Sonethings Gotten Hold of my Heart" by Gene Pitney.
Outside, the entire block has been demolished, with the exception of this pub, and cranes stand erecting its replacement. Will the yuppies who live above us in 24 months' time supplant the Deanos that frequent the place now?
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-harris-election-10-25-24/index.html?cid=ios_app
Was the first hit I got.
But the word reparations is very commonly understood to mean monies paid by defeated nations to compensate for war damage.
And we even have a number (helpfully calculated by the University of the West Indies and the American Society of International Law): £18.8 trillion.
Just 8 times Britain’s total GDP.
As I posted on the other thread, Britain has become the global cuck, with Chagos the other example.
The fact that commentators inside the UK seriously entertain this shows a country that’s completely lost its self-confidence.
Perhaps it won't amount to anything, but it could be the start of major trouble for Putin within the borders of Russia.
It’s Chinese promises of largesse and investment that has given these commonwealth territories the confidence to do what they’re doing.
This is how it must have felt being the Dutch of Spanish in the Caribbean in the 1700s, as the British started picking apart their empires island by island.
Trump, if he wins, is about to surrender Ukraine to the Russians. His policy, if he does not cause an actual trade war, is to undermine the liberal and democratic principles that underpin the Western order.
The Brics conference is certainly morphing from its slightly arbitrary origins to be a nascent challenge to the dollar hegemony.
At home, one British elite seem to be giving up on the concept of British power even as the world grows ever more Hobbesian. The other elite see Britain’s future in maintaining hostility with our nearest neighbours.
Brace.
Really interesting idea that you can be guilty of manslaughter of someone when you have not even been in their country.
The best they could manage in the Sandhurst games was to get the initial wave ashore. Whom then got pushed into the sea. And that was with the umpires deliberately giving the Germans breaks to make it more interesting.
And Anzio was never the main battle.
Secondly, even when he is released, AIUI such people have *very* tight restrictions on what they can do on the Internet, with breaking those rules leading to big problems.
ISTR one of the Bulger killers getting recalled to prison over something he had viewed onlline?
Starting with slavery reparations, we all know it won't happen, the Caribbean countries know this as well. We can apologise and express regret, remorse or whatever but it won't make a scintilla of difference. History is replete with "rights" and "wrongs" - knowledge and understanding of them is vital and needs to be an integral part of our history and the one thing we can and should do is work hard to eradicate modern slavery, people trafficing and the like.
As for "self confidence", after a long period of rule by one party, we now have another party in power. Those who enjoyed for an extended period the comfy chair of Opposition have now had to learn the discomfort of sitting on the spike of Government while those for whom power or the support of those in power gave an exaggerated importance to their view/commentary/analysis are now learning however hard or loud or long they shout no one is listening any more.
1) send a bomb in the post.
2) cause their computer to explode.
Etc
IIRC people have been prosecuted for encouraging/bullying people into suicide, before this. Given the internet, what does distance mean, in this context?
I can’t remember who quoted Earl St Vincent - “I do not say they cannot come. I say they cannot come by sea.”
Perhaps, we have reached that point.
Reading Mitrokhin on the KGB in the 1980s… I’m pretty sure I worked there… it’s the descriptions of meetings about meetings…
There is and always was a strand of nonsense about our ww2 history. We stood alone...apart from the empire and rather a lot of help from a not very neutral USA...
Germany never had that control and was never going to get it, which is why Sealion was always an 'ambitious' plan.
I must say that it's a great shame the Germans didn't give it a go.
The Stukas couldn’t hit ships in 1940 - pretty much at all. It was as a result of this failure, that a special group was setup to learn how. Which was then sent to the Med in 1941-42….