METO Guido

Lease some PRC Shaanxi’s? Now hiring translators for high pay early warning SOF positions. 10m rubble bonus. Half at signing, balance due upon contract completion.

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Excargodog

And they are finding them. For $22k. In wartime.

You are aware, I trust, that the US military also gives one time recruitment bonuses? In peacetime? $15k just for being able to ship out to boot camp promptly? Up to $50k or so for the Army? 20k just to join the reserves.

https://www.goarmy.com/benefits/while-you-serve/bonuses

And retention bonuses?

https://myarmybenefits.us.army.mil/B...nuses?serv=122



and only the Marines seem to be reliably meeting their recruitment goals.

In peacetime?

https://i.postimg.cc/1zbdDgDF/IMG-7348.jpghttps://postimg.cc/nsYTJhRV]https://i.postimg.cc/1zbdDgDF/IMG-7348.jpg

Yet you find it significant that the Russians are paying $22k bonuses for guys to volunteer for a serious war? Seriously? Especially when US E-1 pay and benefits are significantly greater than those of Russian soldiers?

Excargodog

And they are finding them. For $22k. In wartime.

You are aware, I trust, that the US military also gives one time recruitment bonuses? In peacetime? $15k just for being able to ship out to boot camp promptly? Up to $50k or so for the Army? 20k just to join the reserves.

https://www.goarmy.com/benefits/while-you-serve/bonuses

And retention bonuses?

https://myarmybenefits.us.army.mil/B...nuses?serv=122



and only the Marines seem to be reliably meeting their recruitment goals.

In peacetime?

https://i.postimg.cc/1zbdDgDF/IMG-7348.jpghttps://postimg.cc/nsYTJhRV]https://i.postimg.cc/1zbdDgDF/IMG-7348.jpg

Yet you find it significant that the Russians are paying $22k bonuses for guys to volunteer for a serious war? Seriously? Especially when US E-1 pay and benefits are significantly greater than those of Russian soldiers?

Excargodog

Did you know that the DOD just put their last satellite in orbit using Russian engines a week ago? They've been using Russian engines for years.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/0...ocket-engines/

Although they have their own distinct culture, Russians aren't third world types, they have serious technology. Who knows how fast they may or may not replace them? Certainly US sanctions against them haven't been the panacea the State Department claimed they would be. I'd take any such estimate with a grain of salt. But yes, I was aware of the A-50 losses

Are you aware that the USAF just found another new Category 1 deficiency in the KC-46? A program that Boeing has already lost over $7.5 Billion on and it still has seven Category 1 deficiencies? We started a tanker acquisition program to replace the 1950s era KC-135 program way back in 2003 (tanker x) and it was way overdue back then and it's still got serious operational deficiencies and those currently flying will still have to have all these corrected. Having gotten one of those "career broadening" tours in logistics, I can guan-damn-tee you that Russian weapons procurement could not possibly be more screwed up than ours.

Now you and I can pick out rat facts of problems on either side of this issue all day, and I suspect we agree on many things that we are both knowledgeable about. Yes, it is getting more difficult for Russia (and the US, UK, and most other first year countries to recruit) and both Russia and Ukraine have recently tightened up their conscription laws because the pool I'd willing volunteers is drying up:
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/13/11694...ft-ukraine-war
Both sides are resorting to tightening up their conscription and incentivizing people actually willing to enlist.

I personally think you are putting way too much hope in what happens after Putin dies/leaves office. Frankly, none of his likely successors appear to be any kind of an improvement. Certainly Medvedev is no prize:

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/e...f-ddda23fa0000

Comparisons with WW1 and Afghanistan seem a real stretch (especially since the Russians were on our side in WW1 and didn't lose and monarchies were falling right and left in Europe at the time).

https://www.history.com/news/world-w...an-revolution#

As for Afghanistan, yeah, they lost 15,000 troops there and we only lost about 5000 (counting contractors) but we spent $2.3 trillion in our loss and they spent a small fraction of that. And don't forget that the USSR lost 8.7 MILLION troops (5.7 Million of them Russian) in WWII and were victorious in the end. Predicting what losses they might find acceptable by OUR standards is fraught with hazard.

But like ai said, both sides are putting out their propaganda and besides that there are a lot of articles by poorly informed journalists putting out stuff to draw clicks and sell newspapers that emphasizes things that really aren't all that important or purvey their own worldview. You need to look at a lot and do your best to sort the wheat from the chaff. Enlistment bonuses, however, are sort of chaff, IMHO. As is the loss of two aircraft. (Or not being able to refuel A-10s that will soon be leaving the inventory, but that's another story...&#128521

CLazarus

Yes, I was aware of our dependence on a decades old Russian engine. They are in no position to ever catch Space X (but maybe Boeing!).

As for WWI, I think if you look a bit at the terms of the Brest-Litovsk treaty you'd be hard pressed to say that Russia was anything but a loser. And remember, Germany wasn't exactly defeated on the battlefield afterwards. Germany lost for myriad reasons outside the battlefield.

I forgot to mention the Wagner mutiny last year. A nice reminder of just how quickly and unexpectedly the worm can turn. If there is a next time, it will be Moscow or bust (unless they start right in Moscow!).

Hubcapped

and there it is folks. Already within 4 ish posts the bot gets offensive and uncivil to a newcomer (welcome to the right wing propaganda spewing sh1tshow btw).

Clazarus didnt quote him, just brought up a point about retention and bonuses, and kremlin kargo can sense that he is losing ground (in his obsessively deranged mind only of course), and thus gets snarky……

So a recap:
-is uncivil to anyone with a different view…check
-only posts one side of the whole picture…check
-plays victim…check
-lies and or/promotes other lies to “win” an online argument…check

if it looks like a troll, it is a troll

The lack of SA is astounding

Excargodog

You are as entitled to your opinion as I am to mine, but personally I believe that anyone expecting a miraculous change to democratic enlightenment in the next Russian leader is being exceedingly optimistic. Sort of like expecting Iran to stop being ...well, Iran...since they lost their previous leader in a helicopter crash. In fact, I differ with Rickairon his opinion that there are more rational people between Putin and the strategic and tactical nukes who would abort an attempt by him to go nuclear. IT IS A DIFFERENT CULTURE THAN HOURS and opinions based upon what WE believe to be the logical/moral/sensible thing to do, don't have nearly as much to do with reality as we think they do. We are all- to a greater or lesser extent - victims of our own cultural upbringing. A person raised in a cannibal culture doesn't have the aversion to long pig that you or I have.

METO Guido

Long pig, yum

Is this a live fire conflict between superpowers or not? VERY lucrative trade humming along at the core of the American war machine, once again, yes or no? Sales are up. Way up. To make believe that doesn’t account for a significant share of US trillions flowing, lol-able. Regardless how the war for Ukraine goes cold again, the incredible run of US hegemony in Europe, ends there.

CLazarus

I don't expect a miraculous transition at all. I'll take simply dead for the current generation and hope for baby steps towards improvement from there. I have no desire to make nice with Russia in my remaining lifetime. I forgave 30,000+ dead in Korea and 50,000+ in Vietnam (let's not quibble about whose fault it was for our involvement in Vietnam, I know we have mostly ourselves to blame). Not forgiving anything from here on out. Russia can be friends with China and enemies of ours forever for all I care. We don't want or even really need their oil and gas going forward.

And you are right their culture is different from ours. We make the mistake of thinking they are like us. Russian leadership at least makes the exact same mistake.

BTW, a very good day for the good guys today. Scratch one diesel sub, an ammo dump possibly containing glide bombs, and yet another S-400. Sorry for the paywall.

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukr...d=hp_lead_pos5

"Ukraine said it had sunk a Russian submarine off the coast of occupied Crimea in a missile strike that would be a signature blow against Moscow’s embattled fleet there."

"Ukrainian officials said that missile strikes Friday night also damaged four launchers of an S-400 air-defense system in Crimea, one of Russia’s most advanced. They also said a long-range drone strike on an air base in a Russian region neighboring Ukraine had destroyed an ammunition depot that stored glide bombs that are causing severe damage to Ukraine’s forces."

METO Guido

Correct, in reverse. We will be like them. Inevitable. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” Marx