Mr. Otte, I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to have this thread. For the most part the thread has been informative as we have been able to discuss this significantly historical event for the last 4-5 weeks.
That being said, I only know a few words that are 7 letters long.
Perhaps it is time to return to railroad topics.
But again, thank you for allowing us to, for the most part, have an informative discussion on this historically significant and world-changing event.
Regarding how the Holocaust is memorialised in Germany- I have been all over the country and in every city there are memorials and monuments where synagogues once stood. In Berlin on residential streets are what are called "stumbling stones" and these are paving blocks that are slightly raised above the pavement and are in front of houses where people lived that were "resettled in the East and given special treatment." The names of the former residents are engraved on these blocks. I've seen them; they are all over the residential areas. It really hit home; here's a house and the people that lived there were taken away and murdered. Now, I've never been in a German school but I understand that children are taught about the Holocaust which is more than is done in the rest of the world.
In the 1970s I toured Dachau. I was surprised to see that it was in a suburb of Munich and not exactly in the middle of nowhere where people wouldn't see what was going on. School children tour it as well. Probably the most depressing day I've ever had.
54light15 Regarding how the Holocaust is memorialised in Germany- I have been all over the country and in every city there are memorials and monuments where synagogues once stood. In Berlin on residential streets are what are called "stumbling stones" and these are paving blocks that are slightly raised above the pavement and are in front of houses where people lived that were "resettled in the East and given special treatment." The names of the former residents are engraved on these blocks. I've seen them; they are all over the residential areas. It really hit home; here's a house and the people that lived there were taken away and murdered. Now, I've never been in a German school but I understand that children are taught about the Holocaust which is more than is done in the rest of the world. In the 1970s I toured Dachau. I was surprised to see that it was in a suburb of Munich and not exactly in the middle of nowhere where people wouldn't see what was going on. School children tour it as well. Probably the most depressing day I've ever had.
Not to get too far off on a tangent....
The acceptance by Germans of responsibility was a slow process and did not happen right after WWII or with the Nuremburg war trials per se. It was a slow process and there are still Germans (unfortunately) that still refuse to accept that the Germans were ultimately responsible for the government they ended up with as well as the actions of the Nazi's but their number is a lot smaller than it otherwise would be had it not been for the German reconcilation campaign.....
https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2015/summer/germany-japan-reconciliation/
A similar process will now inevitably have to happen between Russia and Ukraine to set things right again and it will take decades as it did in the case of Germany.
54light15In the 1970s I toured Dachau. I was surprised to see that it was in a suburb of Munich and not exactly in the middle of nowhere where people wouldn't see what was going on. School children tour it as well. Probably the most depressing day I've ever had.
It is a chilling experience. Buchenwald is even more depressing. And right in the heart of Munich at one end of Maximiliansplatz is the Platz der Opfer Nationalsozialismus, dedicated in 1946 originally, with an eternal flame to all the NS victims. Similar memorials are found in most cities, along with the brass sidewalk plaques "Stolpersteine" to memorialize victims where they lived.
Back on topic. Another article on how the RRs are working in the Ukraine.
The people who keep the refugee trains running out of Ukraine – photo essay | Ukraine | The Guardian
Past Russian military operations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF8RX6y18cg
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD Past Russian military operations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF8RX6y18cg
That chechen guy really has a mouth on him. He really sounds more like a kid boasting than a battle hardened soldier.
Train picture from Ukraine.
blue streak 1Train picture from Ukraine. The people who keep the refugee trains running out of Ukraine – photo essay | Ukraine | The Guardian
First line got my attention - Ukraine Railways employ 230K people. Roughly double what USA railways currently employ.
Putting has requested over 135k draftees for this class to be able to replace his losses and also has been pulling his surviving troops back for redeployment. This isn't over yet. He's also demanding full payment in rubles for all of this years natural gas deliveries to Europe due today or he'll shutdown all energy deliveries to Europe.
BaltACD blue streak 1 Train picture from Ukraine. The people who keep the refugee trains running out of Ukraine – photo essay | Ukraine | The Guardian First line got my attention - Ukraine Railways employ 230K people. Roughly double what USA railways currently employ.
blue streak 1 Train picture from Ukraine. The people who keep the refugee trains running out of Ukraine – photo essay | Ukraine | The Guardian
Balt - Probably more passenger trains and perhaps more "European-length" freight trains would take more personnel to operate. Thanks for any thoughts!
BaltACDFirst line got my attention - Ukraine Railways employ 230K people. Roughly double what USA railways currently employ.
People are cheaper than equipment. Why spend big bucks on a piece of machinery when you can pay starvation wages to a bunch of people...
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Russians complaining of an attack on a fuel depot near the Ukraine border. I can't imagine how that could happen in a war between the Ukraine and Russia! [/sarcasm]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F45FHLpKtI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m_t3_1vbX8 Well,, if someday the United States would start falling apart and outsiders started lets say sending arms to the new Confederacy what would we do?
Well two points there....
First, US railroads lead the world in productivity and efficiency of frieght operations
Second, Ukraine I think someone said is a large country about the size of France. Plus remember their passenger services are still pretty significant.
Last and slightly off topic, I find it very sad that Russia and it's former client states are all buying European equipment now and have given up on Russian manufacture of most rail passenger cars for intercity corridors. Seems they still buy Russian for long distance in a few cases.
Shadow the Cats ownerPutting has requested over 135k draftees for this class to be able to replace his losses and also has been pulling his surviving troops back for redeployment. This isn't over yet. He's also demanding full payment in rubles for all of this years natural gas deliveries to Europe due today or he'll shutdown all energy deliveries to Europe.
Actually, that is not going to help him a whole lot. You need experienced troops to lead draftees because the draftees only recieve very rudimentary training and will be cannon fodder without the experienced troops. Remember that Russia does not have an NCO Corps in their Army. So where are the experienced troops going to be drawn from if they have a very serious morale issue in their professional ranks as well? So not sure how effective reinforcements will be....time will tell. It might just tick up the casualty rate more on the Russian side.
Then there is the issue of reinforced equipment. Remember the country is run by a Mafia style government structure with each taking their skim or cut. Allegedly as a result, Russian preposistioned equipment and stockpiles of military equipment is much older models than they have destroyed already and in pretty poor maintenence condition from what Western Military analysts are saying. Seems someone was taking the skim off funding for that area of the Defense budget. So lets see how the reinforcements perform. My take is Ukraine is going to be one of the largest junk yards of Russian Military equipment in a few more months.
BaltACD Russians complaining of an attack on a fuel depot near the Ukraine border. I can't imagine how that could happen in a war between the Ukraine and Russia! [/sarcasm] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F45FHLpKtI
1) Ukraine compromises with Putin by giving him concessions.
2) Ukraine ends the war by losing it.
3) Ukraine wins the war by defeating Putin.
She appears to not know anything about warfare. It starts with "the best defense is a good offense". You can't be constantly on the defense. Let the Russian people know what war is like where it can't be twisted by Russian media. I have also read that the Russian people have started to rally behind Putin. That could be because they are afraid to say anything. If it's true though, they deserve whatever they get.
Backshop She appears to not know anything about warfare. It starts with "the best defense is a good offense". You can't be constantly on the defense. Let the Russian people know what war is like where it can't be twisted by Russian media. I have also read that the Russian people have started to rally behind Putin. That could be because they are afraid to say anything. If it's true though, they deserve whatever they get.
I don't get the hesitancy to send more advanced weapons to Ukraine either. We should have sent them harpoon anti-ship missiles, corvettes, more advanced air defense systems as well as artillery battery radar so they can shoot back at Russian artillery when it is firiing. We are just prolonging the suffering by not sending everything we can to assist.
Meanwhile, you can't keep good gear down.
(I wonder if Ukraine has some Sturmoviks stashed away somewhere...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDd8NFftuXI
CMStPnP I don't get the hesitancy to send more advanced weapons to Ukraine either. We should have sent them harpoon anti-ship missiles, corvettes, more advanced air defense systems as well as artillery battery radar so they can shoot back at Russian artillery when it is firiing. We are just prolonging the suffering by not sending everything we can to assist.
If you send advanced weapons then you have to send personnel to train them on the operation of those advanced weapons - boots on the ground.
Euclid BaltACD Russians complaining of an attack on a fuel depot near the Ukraine border. I can't imagine how that could happen in a war between the Ukraine and Russia! [/sarcasm] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F45FHLpKtI This is a surprising development which I would expect supporters of Ukraine to welcome. Yet CNN almost seems to not approve. They seem to think it was a little too provocative for Ukraine to take the war to Putin instead of just being crushed into oblivion because Putin wants their country. CNN worries that the tone set by Ukraine attacking inside of Russia might offend Putin and cause him to back out of negotiations for a peaceful settlement. Particularly revealing of what CNN hopes for is in the last section by Kimberly Dozier starting at 2:50. She says that Ukraine striking inside of Russia is our “worst nightmare.” Why would she think Ukraine successfully retaliating against Russian aggression would be our worst nightmare? The answer apparently is that our main interest is preventing Putin from using nuclear weapons, and that is more important than our interest in Ukraine defeating Russia in this war started by Russia. So the order of our preferred outcome, starting from most preferred to least preferred, is as follows: 1) Ukraine compromises with Putin by giving him concessions. 2) Ukraine ends the war by losing it. 3) Ukraine wins the war by defeating Putin.
I've heard other CNN commentators laugh at the notion that Ukraine striking a fuel dump in Russia constitutes escalation but Russia can feel free to bomb whatever it likes. It's disingenuous to take what a couple of CNN people are saying and characterize it as "CNN says..."
Sending US combat units into Ukraine before the invasion began might have deterred Putin. He may have hesitated to attack US troops the same as we hesitate to attack Russians.
mvlandswSending US combat units into Ukraine before the invasion began might have deterred Putin. He may have hesitated to attack US troops the same as we hesitate to attack Russians.
Putin is the 21st Century Hitler (so far without the ovens)
JayBeeDo you think that Ukrainians have 8 or 9 months to learn how to operate more advanced weapons.
Most western weapon systems can be learned with very little training and they are designed that way so that recent conscripts are not as useless as would otherwise be the case....
I can hand you a Stinger and with just 4-5 sentences on a notecard you can learn how to assemble and aim and fire it accurately. Harpoons are not difficult to learn either mostly learn to target and push a button. I believe they are already trained on the Russian ADA S-300 and the S-400 is just an upgrade of the S-300 so not much additional training there.
So it would not take the timeline you suggest in a lot of cases for training, if much training was needed. We did not train the Afghan Tribal members much on the Stinger.
Corvette is just a high speed motorboat for all practical purposes. I am sure they already have them in the Ukranian Navy as most Navies do, they are so cheap but effective.
If we gave them an M1 tank, that would require a few months of training given all the control mechanisms as well as the tactics involved. Fire and forget weapons not so much nor weapon platforms they already are trained in the earlier versions.
mvlandsw Sending US combat units into Ukraine before the invasion began might have deterred Putin. He may have hesitated to attack US troops the same as we hesitate to attack Russians.
I think if you check we sent in troops to Georgia after it's conflict with Russia started (flew them in August 10th). We flew in US crewed C-17's with combat experienced Georgain Troops and they landed in the capital of Georgia. I believe we also sent warships into the Black Sea on their way to Georgia carrying humanitarian aid.............no response from Russia militarily just more heated words publicly.
CMStPnP Most western weapon systems can be learned with very little training and they are designed that way so that recent conscripts are not as useless as would otherwise be the case.... I can hand you a Stinger and with just 4-5 sentences on a notecard you can learn how to assemble and aim and fire it accurately.
I can hand you a Stinger and with just 4-5 sentences on a notecard you can learn how to assemble and aim and fire it accurately.
Well it takes a bit more than that, but half a day is possible for basic employment sure. For one thing you have to effectively "cock" a Stinger. This involves activating the battery for eight seconds, this powers up the control circuitry, it also releases coolant to chill the infrared seeker of the missile, you then have a finite amount of time in which you can fire the missile. If you did not get a shot off, because let's say the aircraft turned sharply and never came close enough. You have to replace the battery pack and make all the connections to the sight and to the missile, of course the easy way is to just throw it away and demand a replacement. After all its not your $175,000.
Harpoons are not difficult to learn either mostly learn to target and push a button.
What Harpoon weapon are you talking about? This one perhaps. This would take a whole lot longer than what you imply. Perhaps there is another weapon system using that name.
I believe they are already trained on the Russian ADA S-300 and the S-400 is just an upgrade of the S-300 so not much additional training there.
This would be true if there was a source for S-400 systems other than Russia. As it is the US gave the Ukrainians S-300 systems that they acquired to evaluate, and are in talks with NATO members who have S-300 systems. Clearly the Russians think that Ukraine still has working S-300 systems, this is why the only videos showing Russian aircraft show them flying very low which makes it hard for S-300, S-400, or even Patriot missile sytems to target them unless they get too close.
I don't think that you meant this type of Corvette, of which Ukraine ordered four from Turkey, but which are not yet completed Modified Ada-class.
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