American Leaders Must Do Better By Ukraine!

Discussion in 'Russia & Eastern Europe' started by JimfromPennsylvania, Jul 19, 2022.

  1. JimfromPennsylvania

    JimfromPennsylvania Active Member Past Donor

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    Ukraine winning the Russian invasion war would be a "The Berlin wall coming down" moment for our generation it would trigger a gigantic exhale of relief for the free world. It would be seen as the saving of a good country that has a lot of really great potential, Ukraine, from the clutches of a repressive dictator and the largely declawing of this dictator so as to vastly diminish the security threat potential he poses to the peaceful family of nations. In order to achieve this the Free World is going to have to up their game in helping Ukraine! Especially in Congress, the world needs to see Senators and Congresspersons become like a Senator John McCain championing the fight against evil in the world and I am really focusing on here about being creative here and breaking out of the ordinary bureaucratic restraints that control how things are done in Washington. Things like the following need to occur.

    America's providing of the artillery weapon called the HIMARS (high mobility artillery rocket system) is a perfect example. This weapons system has recently been provided to the Ukraine military by the United States around one month ago, and it has proved extremely valuable to Ukraine's military effort. The rockets provided for this system can travel up to fifty miles as opposed to ordinary artillery guns which have a range of around fifteen miles it has enabled the Ukraine military to destroy valuable targets like Russian weapon depots and command centers. One key issue here is that the rockets that the HIMARS fire are made by Lockheed Martin and cost approximately $160,000 a piece; they are called GMLRS rockets, (Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System) rockets. Russia has around a 200,000 man Army as its invasion force in Eastern Ukraine if Ukraine is to win this war against such an ominous force they are going to need an abundance of these rockets to hold and push the Russians back. The bottom line is that Ukraine and its allies cannot afford to pay $160,000 a piece for these rockets, members of Congress got to come up with a better plan to get the Ukrainians these rockets. One idea might be Ukraine's neighbor Poland, a member of NATO, a country that will be a close ally with America in a war with Russia if Putin makes progress on his clear ambition to reconstitute the old Soviet Union and attacks a NATO country which triggers the NATO treaty obligation which requires us to defend that country which means go to war and Poland will be and is a trustworthy ally. Now Poland has entered into a contract to buy a bunch of HIMARS, I am not military weapons system engineer but I would suspect that the crucial technology in this rocket weapon system is the guided flight system technology because rocket technology has been around since the end of World War II and the GMLRS rockets are rockets with a 200 pound warhead, doesn't seem that novel from a rocket standpoint. Because of this international order security threat from Russia why doesn't the U.S. government say to the Polish government you guys manufacture a HIMARS compatible rocket (393 cm long X 22cm diameter) or buy them from another NATO country (France has decent size Defense Industrial Base sector they could probably make such size rockets) and we will get Lockheed Martin to sell the guidance system for GMLRS rockets to you and you just install the guidance system and then you got working GMLRS rockets. The price should be Lockheed Martin's cost to build the guidance system technology plus the US defense industry's average mark-up on artillery ammunition products. The terms of the arrangement could also be to protect Lockheed Martin that Poland would only sell and/or give these rockets to Ukraine and use them for their own military they would not sell or give them to any other country or buyer so Poland would not become a competitor to Lockheed Martin for this weapon product.

    If Ukraine is to win this war they are going to have to have strong counter attack capacity, such a capacity really involve tank units supporting infantry units. One must consider that Russia has a difficult military task in defending its fron line which actually runs from the northern Ukrainian border to Ukrainian southern border the Black Sea, it cuts across the entire country of Ukraine. The more tank units Ukraine can assemble along that front line the higher its odds of having a successful counter attack; Russia isn't stupid, they may not be impressive as a superpower Army (which is largely a morale problem because their war is unjust), the Russian Army surges resources at points they know are going to be counter attacked in the last couple of weeks they did it at Kherson. Anyhow on the issue of getting Ukraine more tanks, there should be a bountiful harvest of getting Ukraine Russia T72 tanks Ukraine's allies should be getting them from all over the world the Ukrainian people should be swimming in T72 tanks. The rationale for this outcome is that the Russian invasion war has dramatically proven that the Russian T72 is an obsolete tank, it has an outdated extremely flawed design. The Russian T72 tank has and is experiencing alarming numbers of what military analyst call the "jack in the box effect" their turrets are be blown off in high numbers. This is the cause in the T72 the 125 mm gun shells are stored in a carrousel in the bottom of the turret and the shells are stored in the walls of the turret, it only takes one piece of hot shrapnel from an enemy shell or rocket to penetrate the turret to set off a chain reaction of these 125mm shells exploding which causes an overall explosive effect of blowing off the turret and killing the entire tank crew. In the American M1 tank gun shells are stored in the back of the turret behind an armored wall if the shells are ignited by being hit by an enemy shell the back portion of the turret gets blown off but the crew survives. With the shoulder fired anti-tank weapons readily available today they can hit the T72 from the top or between the turret and the tank body and create this cooking effect on the tanks ammo destroying the T72. Plus the T72 is a small tank which cannot carry the weight of the armor needed to protect tanks today from the shells, rockets and missiles seen on todays battlefield; its clearly an obsolete design!

    The T72 tank has been in production by Russia since 1972, Russia has delivered this tank throughout the world there is thousands and thousands of these tanks in countries in the Free World today. Responsible governments of these countries should be making firm decisions that they are replacing the T72 tanks in their arsenals because it is outdated; from these wealthy countries they should be donating them to Ukraine and non-wealthy countries should be selling them to Ukraine super cheap! The United States diplomatic and military corps as well as those corps of our good allies should be scouring the globe to get this supply of T72's for Ukraine. One might ask the question if they are so bad why would the Ukraine military want such tanks, the Ukraine military can mitigate this jack in the box vulnerability by carrying low number of shells in the turret it isn't as powerful a weapon on the battlefield but it is better than nothing plus Ukraine is in desperate straights they need to do everything they can to win this war expeditiously because they do not know how the politics of supporting Ukraine throughout the world will play out; Italian leaders pushing the stellar leader Mario Draghi out of the Prime Minister job offers proof as well as the Republican Party inviting Anti-human rights Hungarian leader Viktor Orban to their premier values conference called CPAC! Ukraine may have right on their side right which is beyond challenge and may have God wholeheartedly on their side but none of that will get back their territory which the Russian military is now occupying, Ukraine finding effective weapons and the character of their people to drive the Russians off their land will be the only way for Ukraine is to restore its sovereignty!
     
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  2. PARTIZAN1

    PARTIZAN1 Well-Known Member

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    The west is fearful of giving Ukraine too much firepower because it believes that Putin may become more of a savage beast if he in “cornered”.
    Poland and the Baltic states know if Putin succeeds they are next even with NATO memberships. Would the west be afraid to employ NATO fearing Putin’s threat of nukes?
     
  3. Melb_muser

    Melb_muser Well-Known Member Donor

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    Ukraine cannot 'win' this war. Only Russia can lose it - from internal pressures.
     
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  4. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Yeah this is Russia's war to win...or lose, and that's only if they decide to give up. My guess now they are not going to give up.

    Anyway, the purpose (at least the US purpose) of this war isn't for Ukraine to win, but to bleed the Russians, so that's still working.
     
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