War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

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Slowtwitch
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War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by Slowtwitch »

Armed conflict in Ukraine appears imminent, will /should Nato get involved, and should we be concerned, given that the Russians have 12,500 tanks ready to roll, more than 3x as many tanks as the entire Nato force combined?

Russian T80 tank: top speed 70km/h
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Ben@Forest
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by Ben@Forest »

Slowtwitch wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 5:34pm Armed conflict in Ukraine appears imminent, will /should Nato get involved, and should we be concerned, given that the Russians have 12,500 tanks ready to roll, more than 3x as many tanks as the entire Nato force combined?
Where are you getting your information from? Apparently the Russians have 1,200 tanks that are stationed on the Ukraine border. They may have 12,000 tanks, but most will not be ready to roll against Ukraine.

And are you counting anything which is a tracked vehicle with some component of armour protection as a tank? Tracked vehicles can be personnel carriers, artillery pieces, missile lauchers, recovery vehicles, engineer variants, even ambulances.

Overall the USA has more armoured vehicles than Russia, let alone NATO. Not that it makes any odds as the USA won't be deploying to Ukraine - they're not in NATO. But if Russia does invade then we can expect far greater NATO units in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and so on.
Marcus Aurelius
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by Marcus Aurelius »

Part of me says go full on, unload the entire U.K. / U.S.A / all allies nuclear arsenal on Russia, and send them back to the dark ages. The less hardcore bit of me says, let’s see what happens. However, warnings from history say go with the ‘A plan’.
rualexander
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by rualexander »

Marcus Aurelius wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 6:52pm Part of me says go full on, unload the entire U.K. / U.S.A / all allies nuclear arsenal on Russia, and send them back to the dark ages. The less hardcore bit of me says, let’s see what happens. However, warnings from history say go with the ‘A plan’.
How do you think that's going to work out?
Slowtwitch
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by Slowtwitch »

Ben@Forest wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 6:50pm
Slowtwitch wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 5:34pm Armed conflict in Ukraine appears imminent, will /should Nato get involved, and should we be concerned, given that the Russians have 12,500 tanks ready to roll, more than 3x as many tanks as the entire Nato force combined?
Where are you getting your information from? Apparently the Russians have 1,200 tanks that are stationed on the Ukraine border. They may have 12,000 tanks, but most will not be ready to roll against Ukraine.

And are you counting anything which is a tracked vehicle with some component of armour protection as a tank? Tracked vehicles can be personnel carriers, artillery pieces, missile lauchers, recovery vehicles, engineer variants, even ambulances.

Overall the USA has more armoured vehicles than Russia, let alone NATO. Not that it makes any odds as the USA won't be deploying to Ukraine - they're not in NATO. But if Russia does invade then we can expect far greater NATO units in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and so on.
Russia has 10,500 operational tanks in use, and another 2000 older tanks in storage. Nato in Europe has less than 4000. How many of those are in ready, operating use is anyones guess. The same goes for our nuclear 'deterrent', the jury is out on how many of the 225 antiquated warheads we have would even work, some experts say less than 25%. The Russians have 6255, the Americans 5550. I'm almost certain the US would not risk an exchange of nuclear weapons, to save anyone in Europe. You can bet the Russians know exactly the state of our nuclear arenal and readiness.

They do have form in this respect.

The strategic advantages of taking Kiev are obvious, if you took the city (on the western border of Ukraine) then with the bases in St Petersburg and Murmansk you have a perfect staging triangle to invade Finland, Sweden and all of the previous USSR Balkan states. With modern tanks they are almost all within a one day tank assault. Neither Finland nor Sweden are members of Nato, and neither countries have much in the way of an army in a state of readiness.

Let's face it, who, or what would be able to stop the incredible onslaught of 12,500 tanks?

Forget nuclear, there's absolutely no nation state willing to risk a full exchange, not for a few Balkan countries, no matter what the posturing of the US or the UK will be.

Sanctions will be the only response. That's pretty much pencilled in. Like the Russians could care less about sanctions.
Last edited by Slowtwitch on 12 Feb 2022, 7:29pm, edited 2 times in total.
Marcus Aurelius
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by Marcus Aurelius »

rualexander wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 7:00pm
Marcus Aurelius wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 6:52pm Part of me says go full on, unload the entire U.K. / U.S.A / all allies nuclear arsenal on Russia, and send them back to the dark ages. The less hardcore bit of me says, let’s see what happens. However, warnings from history say go with the ‘A plan’.
How do you think that's going to work out?
Tic tac toe.
Slowtwitch
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by Slowtwitch »

Strategically Kiev is a great jumping off point to invade the west:

Its only 480 miles to Warsaw on very good roads, and only 840 miles to Berlin.

That's about 10hrs by tank to Warsaw, and 18hrs to Berlin.
Marcus Aurelius
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by Marcus Aurelius »

Slowtwitch wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 7:26pm Strategically Kiev is a great jumping off point to invade the west:

Its only 480 miles to Warsaw on very good roads, and only 840 miles to Berlin.
That would make a great marketing campaign for a car manufacturer . ‘Russia to Germany on one tank’
axel_knutt
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by axel_knutt »

Slowtwitch wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 7:15pm Sanctions will be the only response.
There were some people making a fuss when the wind blew their power lines down recently, it'll be interesting to see their reaction when Putin turns the gas tap off.
“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”
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Slowtwitch
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by Slowtwitch »

Marcus Aurelius wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 7:28pm
Slowtwitch wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 7:26pm Strategically Kiev is a great jumping off point to invade the west:

Its only 480 miles to Warsaw on very good roads, and only 840 miles to Berlin.
That would make a great marketing campaign for a car manufacturer . ‘Russia to Germany on one tank’
Kiev to London (by road) is only 1500 miles, assuming you could take the channel tunnel intact. So if you set off to attack Berlin early Sunday morning, Russian T80 tanks could be rolling through the streets of London Monday afternoon.
Pebble
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by Pebble »

In a bid to take the focus away from 'party-gate' my guess is that Boris will be very keen to get involved. No one will care about parties at No.10 amidst a nuclear armageddon, and Boris can get to play at being his hero Churchill,
rjb
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by rjb »

Can we not parachute Boris into Moscow. He would make quite a splash :lol:
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Ben@Forest
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by Ben@Forest »

Slowtwitch wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 7:15pm
Let's face it, who, or what would be able to stop the incredible onslaught of 12,500 tanks?
Military top trumps figures ignores that Russia has other borders. Under the agreement of military forces in the border area between Russia and China it is agreed that Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan can have 3,900 tanks, 3,810 of which are the Russian quota, in the area bordering China. In addition, Russia can deploy 4,500 armored fighting vehicles there. The same tank ceiling has also been set for China.

I don't know how many tanks they actually have there - but you can bet your life that Russia would never leave the Sino-Russian border poorly protected. Russia and China might seem like best buddies at the moment, but they have previous form - the Soviet Union and China were in a state of undeclared war through most of 1969.
Ben@Forest
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by Ben@Forest »

Marcus Aurelius wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 7:28pm
Slowtwitch wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 7:26pm Strategically Kiev is a great jumping off point to invade the west:

Its only 480 miles to Warsaw on very good roads, and only 840 miles to Berlin.
That would make a great marketing campaign for a car manufacturer . ‘Russia to Germany on one tank’
It was (on Top Gear). Making a car advert for VW Clarkson's effort ran with the line - 'Berlin to Warsaw on one tank'.
Slowtwitch
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Re: War on Our Doorstep: How do we respond?

Post by Slowtwitch »

Ben@Forest wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 7:58pm
Slowtwitch wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 7:15pm
Let's face it, who, or what would be able to stop the incredible onslaught of 12,500 tanks?
Military top trumps figures ignores that Russia has other borders. Under the agreement of military forces in the border area between Russia and China it is agreed that Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan can have 3,900 tanks, 3,810 of which are the Russian quota, in the area bordering China. In addition, Russia can deploy 4,500 armored fighting vehicles there. The same tank ceiling has also been set for China.

I don't know how many tanks they actually have there - but you can bet your life that Russia would never leave the Sino-Russian border poorly protected. Russia and China might seem like best buddies at the moment, but they have previous form - the Soviet Union and China were in a state of undeclared war through most of 1969.
My point is the preparedness of Europe and the UK to defend itself against such a fast moving, well armoured onslaught. Russian tanks are THE most well armoured in the world. Who, or what could stop them? Nuclear weapons would never be a first response against a land strike from the east across Europe. Given the huge imbalance in nuclear strike capability (600 in Europe vs well over 6000 in Russia), this could only ever be a 'traditional' land war.

I can't think of any circumstances at all, where the Americans would risk soldiers, nor a nuclear exchange to defend European nation states.
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