World War Three?

[Ronson]

Russia found out the hard way how pathetic their military is right now - do you really think they aren't wondering just how well those nuclear warheads have held up?

I would never want to see my theory tested, but I suspect Russia's nuclear arsenal to be in bad shape. It appears a lot has been neglected in Russia during the past 10-15 years and those ICBMs need maintenance. Have they been getting it? I can imagine many of them not firing, mis-firing, or blowing up in their silos. Of course, they only need a couple to fire correctly for a disaster, but I doubt the mutual-destruction event is likely at this point in time.

[rogue06]

I would never want to see my theory tested, but I suspect Russia's nuclear arsenal to be in bad shape. It appears a lot has been neglected in Russia during the past 10-15 years and those ICBMs need maintenance. Have they been getting it? I can imagine many of them not firing, mis-firing, or blowing up in their silos. Of course, they only need a couple to fire correctly for a disaster, but I doubt the mutual-destruction event is likely at this point in time.

FWIU one of the areas they still maintain fairly well has been their subs and that almost certainly include the nukes on board.

[Sparko]

I would never want to see my theory tested, but I suspect Russia's nuclear arsenal to be in bad shape. It appears a lot has been neglected in Russia during the past 10-15 years and those ICBMs need maintenance. Have they been getting it? I can imagine many of them not firing, mis-firing, or blowing up in their silos. Of course, they only need a couple to fire correctly for a disaster, but I doubt the mutual-destruction event is likely at this point in time.

They apparently can't even keep their elevators working correctly

[Teallaura]

I would never want to see my theory tested, but I suspect Russia's nuclear arsenal to be in bad shape. It appears a lot has been neglected in Russia during the past 10-15 years and those ICBMs need maintenance. Have they been getting it? I can imagine many of them not firing, mis-firing, or blowing up in their silos. Of course, they only need a couple to fire correctly for a disaster, but I doubt the mutual-destruction event is likely at this point in time.

Much worse than that. Our ICBMs only have one original part - the shells. Everything else has been rebuilt multiple times over the years. Well paid, disciplined military don't consider pocketing the hydraulic pump instead of switching it out as scheduled. None of the Russian military is well paid - including generals. All that lovely plumbing in a missile no one expects to ever use seems such a waste when you make 400 rubles a month.

Some missiles (ICMB and other) will work - there's always that one guy that is OCD enough to get the job done. The Joint Chiefs do not have the luxury of assuming that any of the things will fail. So if Russia launches an attack on the US or NATO, they get a full response regardless of how many of their weapons clear the silos.

But that makes it far less likely that Russia will want to let things get to the point of a nuclear exchange with the US. All fifteen hundred of our ready arsenal will fire and most will hit their targets. Russia knows that - but it's not so sure that any of theirs will even launch. A lot of their ICBMs could turn into dirty bombs in their own silos. Their tactical nukes may be mostly dirty bombs. They just don't know. That makes the game a suicide that might not even be a pyrrhic victory.

Nope, they won't play that game.

[Teallaura]

FWIU one of the areas they still maintain fairly well has been their subs and that almost certainly include the nukes on board.

Two different services - Russia has a separate service for nuclear. I'm dubious that the navy does the warhead maintenance.

But they are putting more R&D into the naval (that I know of) so yeah, those may be in better shape.

However, given their showing in the Sea of Japan exercises, I wouldn't be over confident about anything naval if I were the Russian government.

FYI: they brought a fraction of what was supposed to show up and they included their own tug.

[Teallaura]

Interesting piece in the WaPo about Russia's missile attacks on Ukraine

Source: Russia’s airstrikes, intended to show force, reveal another weakness

On Monday, Russia fired 84 missiles, many at Ukrainian civilian infrastructure targets, causing power outages in many cities. On Tuesday, Russia launched another 28 cruise missiles. And on Thursday, the Ukrainian Armed Forced General Staff said Russia had hit more than 40 settlements since the day before. In all, more than three dozen people were killed.

But no matter how many times Russia fires at Ukraine, pro-war Russian nationalists want more, even though targeting civilian infrastructure is potentially a war crime.

“It has to be done constantly, not just once but for two to five weeks to totally disable all their infrastructure, all thermal power stations, all heating and power stations, all power plants, all traction substations, all power lines, all railway hubs,” said Bogdan Bezpalko, a member of the Kremlin’s Council on Interethnic Relations.

“Then, Ukraine will descend into cold and darkness,” Bezpalko said on state television. “They won’t be able to bring in ammunition and fuel and then the Ukrainian army will turn into a crowd of armed [men] with chunks of iron.”

But the hawks, who are demanding publicly on TV broadcasts and on Telegram to know why Russia does not hit more high value targets, won’t like the answer: The Russian military appears to lack sufficient accurate missiles to sustain airstrikes at Monday’s tempo, according to Western military analysts.

“They are low on precision guided missiles,” said Konrad Muzyka, founder of Gdansk, Poland-based Rochan Consulting said, offering his assessment of Russia’s sporadic air attacks. “That is essentially the only explanation that I have.”

Even as NATO allies on Thursday said they would rush additional air defenses to Ukraine, the experts said the reason Russia had yet to knock out electricity and water service across the country was simple: it can’t.

Since May, Russia’s use of precision guided missiles (PGMs) has declined sharply, with analysts suggesting then that Russian stocks of such missiles may be low.

Tuesday’s attacks mainly used air-launched cruise missiles, which are slower than Iskander guided missiles and easier for Ukraine to shoot down, according to Muzyka. In March, the Pentagon reported that Russia’s air-launched cruise missiles have a failure rate of 20 to 60 percent.

“If Russia had a limitless supply of PGMs, I think that they would still strike civilian targets, because that’s what the Russian way of warfare is,” Muzyka said. He said analysts did not have confirmed information about Russian missile stocks or production levels, and judgments were based on the decline in usage of PGMs and Moscow’s greater reliance on less accurate missiles.

But a clue lies in Russia’s failure to destroy the kinds of targets that Ukraine is able to hit using U.S.-supplied HIMARS artillery.

“If we take a look at what HIMARS has done to Russian supply routes, and essentially their ability to sustain war, they’ve done massive damage to ... Russia’s posture in this war,” Muzyka said. “So technically, you know, if the Russians had access to a large stock of PGMS, they could probably inflict a similar damage to Ukrainian armed forces, but they haven’t.”

“They actually failed to,” he continued. “They even failed to interdict the main Ukrainian supply roads. They failed to destroy bridges, railway, railway intersections, and so on and so forth.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin is juggling so many military problems that some Western analysts are already predicting Russia’s war will fail. Others say it remains too early to write Russia off, especially with hundreds of thousands of conscripted reinforcements potentially headed to the battlefield in coming weeks.

Since day one, Russia has sustained shocking levels of battlefield casualties, battering military morale. It has suffered repeated defeats, including the failure to take Kyiv, a retreat from Snake Island, the rout in Kharkiv and loss of Lyman, a strategic transit hub.

Ukrainian forces also continue to slowly recover territory in Kherson region, in their ongoing southern offensive.

Russia’s military mobilization also remains in shambles, with angry draftees posting videos online almost daily, complaining of insufficient training and poor equipment. Moscow police raided hostels and cafes on Tuesday to grab men and deliver them to mobilization points, and military recruitment is continuing in Russian prisons, according to independent Russian media site SOTA.

Lawrence Freedman, professor of war studies at King’s College London, wrote in a newsletter that Russia’s escalation of missile attacks on civilian targets Monday had achieved no clear military gain.

“Russia lacks the missiles to mount attacks of this sort often, as it is running out of stocks and the Ukrainians are claiming a high success rate in intercepting many of those already used,” Freedman wrote. “This is not therefore a new war-winning strategy but a sociopath’s tantrum.”

Putin’s “need to calm his critics also explains why he has lashed out against Ukrainian cities,” Freedman wrote. “The hard-liners have been demanding attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure for some time and they now have got what they wanted. But they will inevitably be disappointed with the results.”

“These attacks could well be repeated, because it is part of the mind-set of Putin and his generals that enemies can be forced to capitulate by such means,” he added. “But stocks of Kalibr and Iskander missiles are running low.”

Amid Russia’s military setbacks, striking at Ukraine’s power grid in recent days was designed to shock and terrify civilians, starve them of energy in the winter and break their will to resist, according to Maria Shagina, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank.

One apparent goal of Russia’s strikes on six electrical substations in Lviv, western Ukraine, was to stop Ukraine exporting electricity to Europe, Shagina said. The strikes also crippled the city’s power supply.

“Now we’re seeing the escalation and weaponization of the critical infrastructure,” she said, adding that it was no accident that Russia had destroyed Ukraine’s capacity to export electricity to Europe at the same time Moscow has weaponized natural gas, cutting supplies to pressure European Union countries.

“There is some intensification of the war, in terms that Russia doesn’t even hide even the fact that they have attacked civilian infrastructure, critical infrastructure,” Shagina added. “They’re trying to escalate the war as much as they can.”

Muzyka said Russia, ignoring international conventions, has consistently targeted civilian apartment blocks and infrastructure in two Chechen wars, in Syria and Ukraine.

“Definitely they focus on the power grid as a way of making civilian lives miserable,” he said. “For Russians, striking civilian areas, residential areas and anything that can potentially impact the lives of civilians is a military objective, because for Russia, the war is total.”

“Essentially what the Russians are trying to do is to wear down Ukrainians, decrease the morale, decrease the willingness to fight and from their point of view, hopefully increase the pressure on the Ukrainian government to enter negotiations with Russia,” he added.


Source

© Copyright Original Source

[*The story continues, to read click the hyperlink*]

I think it was Gen. Ben Hodges (Ret.) who mentioned a week or so after the invasion that he'd been watching a video that day from the fighting and was at first analyzing the battle - until it dawned on him that the cell network shouldn't still be usable. He'd found out later that the Russians deliberately left it intact - so they could use cellphones because they didn't have enough radios.

Toss up between whether they are idiot enough to target civilians when they are running low on munitions (hint, shoot at the guys that shoot back): the Russians are dumb enough to think that this will actually scare Ukraine into submission (they'd have long since surrendered if it were that easy to scare them): they simply can't shoot straight (probable); they have no idea where the military targets they need to hit are (command and supplies anyway): or they know they've lost and are just being as pissy as possible about it (there's an element of this even if Russia hasn't realized they've lost).

[rogue06]

Much worse than that. Our ICBMs only have one original part - the shells. Everything else has been rebuilt multiple times over the years. Well paid, disciplined military don't consider pocketing the hydraulic pump instead of switching it out as scheduled. None of the Russian military is well paid - including generals. All that lovely plumbing in a missile no one expects to ever use seems such a waste when you make 400 rubles a month.

Some missiles (ICMB and other) will work - there's always that one guy that is OCD enough to get the job done. The Joint Chiefs do not have the luxury of assuming that any of the things will fail. So if Russia launches an attack on the US or NATO, they get a full response regardless of how many of their weapons clear the silos.

But that makes it far less likely that Russia will want to let things get to the point of a nuclear exchange with the US. All fifteen hundred of our ready arsenal will fire and most will hit their targets. Russia knows that - but it's not so sure that any of theirs will even launch. A lot of their ICBMs could turn into dirty bombs in their own silos. Their tactical nukes may be mostly dirty bombs. They just don't know. That makes the game a suicide that might not even be a pyrrhic victory.

Nope, they won't play that game.

Don't forget, they also still have heavy bombers that can do it the old fashioned way.

[rogue06]

I think it was Gen. Ben Hodges (Ret.) who mentioned a week or so after the invasion that he'd been watching a video that day from the fighting and was at first analyzing the battle - until it dawned on him that the cell network shouldn't still be usable. He'd found out later that the Russians deliberately left it intact - so they could use cellphones because they didn't have enough radios.

Toss up between whether they are idiot enough to target civilians when they are running low on munitions (hint, shoot at the guys that shoot back): the Russians are dumb enough to think that this will actually scare Ukraine into submission (they'd have long since surrendered if it were that easy to scare them): they simply can't shoot straight (probable); they have no idea where the military targets they need to hit are (command and supplies anyway): or they know they've lost and are just being as pissy as possible about it (there's an element of this even if Russia hasn't realized they've lost).

From Bezpalko's remarks it looks like they are once again counting on the brutal winter to help with the work.

[seanD]

No it's not escalating. Not at all. How ridiculous to think such a thing (</sarc>).

I don't know if former intelligence heads retain their insider connections, but I'd be surprised if they don't. According to Leon Panetta...

Vladimir Putin, increasingly cornered and isolated, continues to threaten the use of so-called battlefield nuclear weapons to try and gain a military advantage on the ground in Ukraine. Some intelligence analysts now believe that the probability of the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine has risen from 1-5 percent at the start of the war to 20-25 percent today.

I'm not sure how an "intelligence analyst" could reach a 20-25% estimate of a nuclear weapon used from a previous 1-5% estimate if the war wasn't escalating. Maybe they're getting their info from lamestream media.

[Mountain Man]

Indeed, this narrative that Putin and his army are toothless and impotent is a dangerous one. It's fine if the uninformed public believes it, but unfortunately, it seems that those in Washington in charge of war planning believe it, too, and it appears they are making a bad situation worse.

[One Bad Pig]

No it's not escalating. Not at all. How ridiculous to think such a thing (</sarc>).

I don't know if former intelligence heads retain their insider connections, but I'd be surprised if they don't. According to Leon Panetta...



I'm not sure how an "intelligence analyst" could reach a 20-25% estimate of a nuclear weapon used from a previous 1-5% estimate if the war wasn't escalating. Maybe they're getting their info from lamestream media.

Eh, not so much an escalation, but Putin realizing he's not going to win. You don't nuke land you're trying to take over.

[Sparko]

Eh, not so much an escalation, but Putin realizing he's not going to win. You don't nuke land you're trying to take over.

Yeah that's the only way I see him using nukes, as an act of spite. But even then he would be turning the entire world against him if he did that. Even his buds China.

Two outcomes I see if he uses tactical nukes:

1. The entire world turns against Russia and Ukraine becomes a radioactive wasteland in several places (much like Chernobyl).
2. The damage and radiation are not that bad in a limited use of tactical nukes and people realize that you can use nukes in a conventional war and everyone starts doing it and the world ends up a radioactive wasteland as wars escalate into a full blown nuclear war.

[seanD]

Eh, not so much an escalation, but Putin realizing he's not going to win. You don't nuke land you're trying to take over.

This is so dumb.

Escalation: a situation in which something becomes greater or more serious.

The chance of nuclear engagement increasing from 1-5% to 20-25% I would think is a situation becoming greater and more serious, hence escalating. And from what I understand, Russia is not trying to take over all parts of Ukraine, and I'm pretty sure the "intelligence analysts" understand it that way as well, unless they're imagining it a different way than I am.

[rogue06]

This is so dumb.

Escalation: a situation in which something becomes greater or more serious.

The chance of nuclear engagement increasing from 1-5% to 20-25% I would think is a situation becoming greater and more serious, hence escalating. And from what I understand, Russia is not trying to take over all parts of Ukraine, and I'm pretty sure the "intelligence analysts" understand it that way as well, unless they're imagining it a different way than I am.

I doubt that anyone outside the Kremlin has any inkling how much if any the chances that nuclear conflict will result have gone up. They are extracting numbers out of a nether region.

One thing that is almost a certainty though. If the chances escalate so do the odds that Putin will wake up one morning quite dead.

[seanD]

I doubt that anyone outside the Kremlin has any inkling how much if any the chances that nuclear conflict will result have gone up. They are extracting numbers out of a nether region.

One thing that is almost a certainty though. If the chances escalate so do the odds that Putin will wake up one morning quite dead.

That may be true or may not be, but I imagine Panetta has associations with folks who are a whole lot less clueless and know a lot more about strategy and potentiality of nuclear engagement and the consequences of that than a bunch of anonymous schmoes on the internet.