Russians as they are fully self sufficient in any invaded territory
Or even not invaded – don’t know if you saw the recent picture of a captured Russian’s effects, which included a “fleshlight” (aid to male masturbation) – and very little else.
Can’t say EuroGA is not educational
Peter wrote:
In the 20th century wars, neutrality was a tour de force in cynicism and double speak
I think you are seeing this too much black and white. What is “neutral” anyway. There is a specter of shades here. Since WWII neither Sweden nor Finland have been neutral in the correct sense. They have not been in NATO, but the Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO) has been strong. It’s the military side of the Nordic Council, sort of, and consists of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. We had common passport rules (no need for passports), free movements of people, free to work, go to scool everywhere, free health care wherever you are etc. All of this long before EU or Schengen.
Only Norway, Denmark and Iceland have been part of NATO, but Swedish and Finnish forces have participated in exercises for as long as I can remember. Article 5 of NATO, which more or less is the fundamental core of NATO, has not been applied to Sweden or Finland.
Have they been neutral? Semantics perhaps, but the truth is they have not been a part of the alliance called NATO (not bound by article 5), but neutral is a far stretch due to NORDEFCO, the Nordic Council, EU, and military participation with NATO. It’s probably fair to say they have not been part of NATO in the same way Norway and Iceland are not members of the EU.
Looking at the military capability of the Nordic region (NORDEFCO) is a bit enlightening. Lets look at the number of fighter aircraft as a proxy. As of today there are (Wikipedia):
Norway, F-35 : 52
Sweden, JAS-39 : 94
Denmark, F-16 (F-35) : 33 (27)
Finland, F-18 (F-35) : 55 (64)
Only counting F-35s for Denmark/Finland since the older ones are retiring this means:
JAS-39 : 94
F-35 : 143
Total : 237
These are the newest and most advanced aircraft anywhere on the globe. In comparison the mighty Royal Air Force of the UK has 101 operational Typhoons in various condition and 24 F-35B. The mighty Luftwaffe has 140 Typhoons (how many operational?) and 100 ancient Tornados way overdue for scrapping.
I think it’s fair to say that including Sweden and Finland in NATO, represent a formidable increase of military strength. The air power of Sweden and Finland alone is greater than the UK and Germany or any other European country. That force has been there for the Nordic Cooperation all since WWII. NATO with the US forces and article 5 is another league of course, but the greatest change is in fact a much more solid, standardized, cooperative and ready alliance of the Nordic countries, with or without the US, and with or without the rest of Europe.
Norway was neutral pre WWI. During WWI it managed to stay neutral. WWII was another matter. The government had their heads far up a certain place, and had more issues with England really. The Germans took advantage of this and, bang, during one single night, the Germans invaded everywhere at once from the sea. People literally woke up in the morning because of the noise of German soldiers marching in the streets, coming seemingly from nowhere. It happened everywhere. Some fighting here and there, but all the larger cities was taken, the government on the run. Had the government been only half way awake, all those ships would have been shot down. There were sea artillery everywhere, impossible to take from the air, only one was used (and did shoot down a heavy cruiser). That invasion could easily have gone bad for Germany, extremely bad for the German navy in fact. If that had happened, I’m sure Norway also would be “neutral” to this day.
IMO neutrality or not. It’s much more just a practical thing based on previous experience rather than a political convention, or idealism. Finland and Sweden have had good experience, Denmark and Norway have had bad experience.
What I was getting at is that not joining NATO in the present situation would have implied a pretence of neutrality and that would have required some very tricky explanations
Vlad’s biggest achievement is not getting himself smashed up in Russia but in forcing the agenda on abandoning neutrality in the countries concerned.
What I was getting at is that not joining NATO in the present situation would have implied a pretence of neutrality and that would have required some very tricky explanations
Probably, but I think Sweden and Finland joining NATO was mature long before this latest conflict. It was the last drop that made it evident, by swinging the public opinion. The logics of NATO suddenly came on display as reality that no one can dispute.
by swinging the public opinion
Exactly, but without that “Vlad marketing job” it would not have been politically possible to do it.
BTW, re that river crossing, apparently Russia tried twice more at the same spot. 2nd time with the same result. The 3rd time they tried it without the bridge (which got sunk) by driving over the bottom of the river, and gave up when 12 armoured vehicles (10 tanks and 2 APCs) got “drowned”. Just their turrets are sticking up above the water. Perhaps somebody in the the Russian tank factory sold the rubber seals on Ebay? Some amazing drone photos online. The stupidity has no limits.
It’s beyond comprehension why Russian units are trying the same operation over and over at the same spot. The epitome of this is the Chornobaivka military airfield near Kherson: in the early days of the war, Russians tried to capture it for their own use only to have ~20 helicopters destroyed on the ground at once. Since then, they have attempted to take it twenty times, getting smashed on every occasion. Another such place is the Snake Island, a tiny piece of land in the Black Sea. Technically, Russians are controlling it, but the equipment they have already lost to retain control of it outweighs its strategic importance by a large margin. Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet, was also sunk in its vicinity, even if it’s not directly related to maintaining control over the island.
It is hard to understand. Perhaps symbolic value of certain places?
The drowned tanks:
One would think there must be a procedure for crossing a river this way, and one which involves relating how deep it is to the vehicle capability.
I read an interesting article about that river crossing. It was an obvious place to do it, so the Ukrainians surveyed it and shelled it a few days before to set up the artillery elevation etc. How one sets up the heading accurately enough, I still don’t understand, looking at how hard it is to measure mag heading to anywhere near 1 degree and even that assumes there is no metal around. This shows one system, which Russia apparently doesn’t have. 1 milliradian is 10m at 10km. Then the Russians turned up at the exact spot
Peter wrote:
How one sets up the heading accurately enough, I still don’t understand, looking at how hard it is to measure mag heading to anywhere near 1 degree and even that assumes there is no metal around
You just use a topo map: find your own location on the map, then sight a prominent landmark or two, and measure a target bearing from there using a theodolite.
If you have no usable landmarks to sight, a gyrocompass (not to be confused with a directional gyro) gives you true north with a much higher precision than a magnetic compass, though it takes a few minutes to do so (longer for better accuracy).
I know you can get true north with a “gyro” but it has to be a very high quality one. And FOG gyros are still outperformed by large mechanical ones (we had a thread on that recently). Do the modern systems actually do that? It would be a good solution because a compass gives you magnetic heading and then you need charts for the variation, etc.
Today’s news:
Russian state television has said Moscow may deploy tactical nuclear weapons to its European borders if Finland and Sweden allow military bases on their territory after joining NATO.
They must think everybody is absolutely stupid. Russia has always had nukes stored everywhere.
Russia will totally destroy the British way of life, however:
