WEBVTT - Lessons On Combat and Discourse from Ukraine 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:11.240 Oh, it could happen here, and it's currently happening there 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:14.960 there being Ukraine, which is in the midst of an 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:19.319 invasion by the Russian government. I'm Robert Evans. This is 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:21.800 a podcast about bad things and how to make them better, 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:26.920 joined as often by Garrison and Chris my co hosts, 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:31.760 and we are talking about some of the advice, good 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.720 and bad, that's been going around on social media about 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:38.240 how to disable and destroy armored vehicles. This is something 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:40.800 we've kind of waited to do until the conflict was 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:42.600 a little bit more of a mature state. But in 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:45.920 brief if you have been following what's been happening in 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:48.680 Russia through the lens of social media or what's pepping 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:50.479 in Ukraine through the lens of social media, one thing 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.199 that has happened is in the early stages of the invasion, 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.520 a whole bunch of people flocked, particularly to Twitter, but 0:00:57.640 --> 0:00:59.600 also not this did not just stay on Twitter. There 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.880 were large number of mainstreams news articles published on the 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.640 subject of the things people were saying to talk about 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:10.440 different ways civilians could disable Russian armored vehicles or otherwise 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:14.880 stymy and thwart the progress of Russian military units through 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.640 their cities. Um. And this has been accompanied by things 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.480 like the Ukrainian government giving out information on how to 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:22.960 make molotov cocktails. We talked about this in our Molotov 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.600 Cocktail episode and putting out really neat infographics on where 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.880 to throw molotov cocktails to disable armored vehicles. But it's 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.200 also come with a lot of bad advice that I 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.080 don't want people who are maybe looking at the potential 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.919 of urban combat happening in their future to take away 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.240 from this conflict, because there's also a lot of disinfos. 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.520 So that's what we're talking about today. Yes, And I 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.760 guess one of the first places to probably discuss this 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:51.640 urban combat idea is they probably the guy who's tried 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:53.920 to make kind of a career out of talking about 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.880 ourban combat, which would be who wrote a relatively viral 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.560 Twitter thread on this topic and has been writing about 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:04.000 this thing for the past few years. Um. He's a 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:08.520 he's the the chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:12.080 Points Modern War Institute and served for like a quarter 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.799 of a century as an infantry soldier, including two deployments 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.680 into Iraq. And yeah, the past few years he's tried 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:20.440 to kind of make a name for himself as the 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.880 guy who writes about urban combat. And obviously since this 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:29.400 was happening largely when Russia started invading Kiev, John Spetzer 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:31.680 put put together some of his thoughts that went pretty 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.079 viral on this on this said topic, Yeah, and it's 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.160 it's frustrating. You've got a quote in here from one 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:38.960 of the articles about he was giving out that says 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.520 some of his advice such is preparing simple molotov cocktails, 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.320 it's already being seen on the streets of Kiev, which 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:49.640 is kind of framing it as if Spencer advised the Ukrainians. 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:52.440 Absolutely not true. Before he made that threat, the government 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:56.800 was urging people to rest. And also, like molotov cocktails 0:02:57.040 --> 0:02:59.680 got their name from people in Finland, not super far 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.200 from Ukraine, resisting the Russian military in a very similar 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.560 way to add, they're being used by Ukrainian civilians. Now, Um, 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:08.919 what I I believe what John Spencer did. He's a 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:13.600 guy with some qualifications. Um, certainly like not a random person. 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.160 We'll talk about random people giving advice to on Twitter. 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:20.080 But he's also all None of his advice is new, 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:22.360 none of it is from him, None of it is 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.880 counter intuitive. A good deal of it is bad, and 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:27.840 most of what he said that is good is just 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.120 him pulling things from US military combat manuals and from 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.880 Ukrainian military combat manuals and then putting it up in 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:37.320 social media in order to go viral and try to 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:41.280 get another book deal by making it look as if 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.200 he is giving advice that is being adopted in real time, 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:46.360 which is not what is happening. Yeah, I mean, like 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.040 a good, good instance of this is yeah claiming that 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:51.960 they're making multiv cocktails due to his advice. I mean, 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:54.680 there's a picture in that very article that was taken 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.560 before he even posted that thread. So it's like, no, 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.600 they're they're few people know how to make all have cocktails. 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:02.600 That's not hard to find out. In a lot of cases, 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.720 the Ukrainian Ukrainian government was giving out instructions on how 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:07.320 to do it. And I mean, and if you if 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.120 you look at this picture, um, it looks very similar 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.560 to a lot of a lot of like the the 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.760 almost like small defensive weapons factories that we saw across 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:22.240 the States. You would often see just collections of bottles, uh, 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:24.560 just ready to be thrown, all kind of laid out 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.680 in in in milk crates very similar to this photo. 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.080 Now there was there was less actual molotov cocktails, but 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.320 the way that this is whole, the way this all 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.360 set up looks, looks very similar to any kind of 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:40.880 insurgency tactics of being like, yeah, there's gonna be spontaneous 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:42.720 on the ground organizing because people are just kind of 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.480 naturally gifted at that. And on a on an objective level, 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.840 molotov cocktails have a place on an urban battlefield. They 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:54.360 can be useful weapons for disabling armored vehicles, for causing distractions, 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:58.960 for injuring and even sometimes killing soldiers. They are they 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:01.599 are capable of doing that, and they that's part of 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:04.880 why the Ukrainian government put out these guides showing like 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:06.760 where to huck the sons of bitches in order to 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:10.599 disable you know, transports and armored vehicles and whatnot. Now 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:15.160 that said, attempting to attack a military column with a 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:20.599 Molotov cocktail in most circumstances is very close to suicidal, 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:22.600 and I've watched a number of videos of Ukrainians do it. 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:24.880 In the times that seemed to be most successful is 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.680 when you have areas where the Russians are attempting to 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:32.640 establish control. You have small groups of vehicles that are 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:36.760 moving down residential streets. You have a significant amount of 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:41.800 traffic of civilian traffic occurring alongside those military convoys. And 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:44.799 as they passed the convoy, a civilian hucks a molotov, 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:48.120 or as they pass a building, a civilian hucksa molotov. 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.279 Um and those seem to be, broadly speaking, the situations 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:54.120 in which people have kind of gotten away with it. 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:56.719 We don't have any kind of I'm not aware of 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:00.240 any kind of solid, uh overarching analysis of all of 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:04.000 the use of molotovs in this but that is, broadly speaking, 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.960 a potentially effective way to use a molotov cocktail UH 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.800 in order to degrade military capacity of an occupier. What 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.480 doesn't work, and what Spencer and a number of other 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.680 people suggested is is huck and paint at tanks or 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:21.560 other armored vehicles. And that may be surprising to a 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:23.880 lot of people. I think there's a lot of folks 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:28.360 who want to believe this, UH want to believe that 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.599 that that could really work, because it's like you walk ship, right, 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:36.400 it feels like the kind of thing should be doing. Yes, 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.480 But here is the thing When you have police officers 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:42.400 who are tear gas in an area and you huck 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:43.880 a bunch of paint and you get it over their 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.240 face masks and they cannot see, it reduces their ability 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.520 to tear gas you for a while. It makes them uncomfortable, 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.520 it makes them have less fun, and it damages gear. 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.240 When you huck a bunch of paint at an armored vehicle, 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.839 the armored vehicle will return fire with a fifty caliber 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.520 mounted Dashka or some other similar gun which fires bullets 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:05.760 that are large enough to take chunks the size of 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.000 your head out of concrete, and you will be torn 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:12.080 apart in your organs, liquefied in a hail of metal um. Meanwhile, 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:14.200 the paint that you are attempting to throw at that 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:18.960 vehicle is almost certain to have no impact on it. Um. 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.360 Not only are you unlikely to get close enough to 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:23.960 use the paint, because you have to be considerably closer 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:26.320 to do that than you have to with a molotov 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.200 in most situations, but also tanks are built with the 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:33.480 understanding that it is possible that one or more of 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:37.000 the ways in which they see will be obstructed. Tank 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.680 drivers are trained to drive blind. There are ways of 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.760 utilizing tanks when vision is obstructed, because in the kinds 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.240 of fights that tanks are built to get into, they 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.760 are often in situations where there is so much smoke 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:53.920 around the exactly that there is effectively zero visibility, which 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:57.040 is why when Spencer started talking about people throwing paint 0:07:57.040 --> 0:07:59.800 at tanks, a number of tank drivers came out and said, 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.800 that's actually horrible advice, like they don't work that way, 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.760 and I was, I was chatting with a couple of people. Um, 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.480 there was one fellow former Green brand name Mike Nelson 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.400 who was posting about Spencer and very angry that he 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.840 was basically copying material directly from stuff published by the 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.640 Ukrainian government, and then like getting up anytime journalists or 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.400 media figures would comment about Ukraine, would like, there's a 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.600 nasty post here where Anne Cabrera, who I think is 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.240 some sort of reporter, was like, I feel heartsick upon 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:31.400 the latest news out of Mariopol. My god, just like 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:35.400 expressing horror and human terry and tragedy. And Spencer posts 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:38.200 a link to his personal website and says me too, 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:40.240 not sure if you saw my mini manual for the 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.800 Urban Defender, but it is available in English and UKRAINI. Yeah, 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:48.360 it's so like anyway grifty ship like that. But because 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.120 that it's all that's very different than also like throwing 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.440 paint at like a squad car or like a riot 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.640 like a riot truck that's coming through because if obscure 0:08:57.640 --> 0:08:59.200 their vision, the worst that they can do is crash 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:01.800 into a wall. They're not going to start firing uh 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:07.720 massive explosion rounds from a central Uh. Yeah. So they 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:10.960 they do not like for one thing, the like the police, 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:14.079 as bad as they can be, their default when they 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.800 come under any kind of like attack is not to 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:22.680 start firing machine guns wildly in all directions, which Russian 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.520 not yet at least. Um. But you know, the other 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:31.160 thing I was chatting with Matthew Mora, who's a is 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:32.960 has been one of the guys who's biling ailing get 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.760 spencer on Twitter. Matthew was a Marine Corps tank commander 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.600 and was blown up in Afghanistan. So he was in 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:42.160 a tank that was attacked several times and eventually destroyed. UM. 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.240 So he's he has some firsthand knowledge about what works 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:47.480 and does not work against tanks. And one of the 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.320 things he pointed out is that the people who destroyed 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.520 his tank put together I don't know, hundred two hundred 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:57.720 dollars worth of various accelerants and random scrap metal and 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.000 made a bomb that destroyed an Abrams tank that works 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:04.200 a lot better than paint, and it's it's the kind 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:06.760 of thing where I think one of the things that's 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.120 frustrating here is you've got a lot of these like 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.800 American kind of military academic guys. And I know Spencer served, 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.480 but that doesn't necessarily mean much. That doesn't mean just 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.200 being deployed to Iraq doesn't mean you did anything. But 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.080 they were deployed, and maybe they did see urban combat. 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.120 But I have watched United States soldiers in an intense 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.560 urban combat environment, uh, and most of what they did 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:30.680 was be inside of m wraps because it's very hard 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.680 to blow those up. While the Iraqi military did a 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:35.760 great deal of the fighting, and when US soldiers did 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:39.439 engage in fighting, they did so with absolute air supremacy 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.480 and with artillery supremacy. Um. Which isn't to say that 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.160 it wasn't dangerous, but it is a profoundly different situation 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.000 than engaging in urban combat when the air space is 0:10:48.040 --> 0:11:00.840 contested and when you do not have artillery supremacy. So 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:04.240 what does that mean in terms of like what can 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:08.480 people actually take away that's useful from this, UM. Well, 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:12.920 on an individual level, somethings have been extremely effective. Ukrainian 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:17.520 territorial defense militias have been very effective at doing things 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:21.400 like picking up small arms, going out in small patrols 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:26.040 into uh rural environments around the area where Russian troops 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.760 are moving in small convoys, and oftentimes, because of the 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:31.760 way the advance went, you would have a single or 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:35.600 a couple of Russian munition trucks essentially alone and unsupported, 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:39.000 trying to find their way around. UM. You had civilians 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.480 doing stuff like turning signs around, like removing signs, which 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:46.280 they were instructed to by the areas Kraatian officials as well. Yes, yes, 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:48.360 and which I'm sure some people just started doing because 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.080 it seemed like a good idea. UM. But that sort 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:53.200 of ship causes them to burn fuel, causes them to 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.240 abandon vehicles. You had these kind of independent groups of 0:11:56.240 --> 0:12:01.320 farmers towing away abandoned vehicles. You had small raiding parties 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:06.600 attacking convoys and attacking isolated units. You had cases where 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:09.480 you know, Russian military units early in the fight would 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.720 get into Kiev uh kind of on accident and be 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.199 ambushed by territorial defense units and wiped out. And those 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:20.160 are all very effective examples of of decentralized kind of 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:24.880 ground up resistance against a major military force. Now, one 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.080 thing we don't know that is important if you think 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.000 about the potential that you might have to endure something 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:32.000 like this, is we have no idea what the casualties 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.400 were like among those kids. It is a total black box. 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:38.880 And it's it's probable that part of why Russian forces 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:42.000 did the war crime they did in Bucca Um was 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.040 because they had an attitude that all civilians were insurgents, 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.839 which is, you know what happens when you have kind 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.559 of a people's war, which doesn't justify an act of 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:54.080 genocide um, but it is something people should keep aware of. 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:56.560 When you start fucking with the signs and ambushing the 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:59.480 convoys and throwing Molotov's, one of the things that will 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:02.880 happen is it will accelerate the violence that is being done. Yeah, 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.079 and it makes to the civilian justified target in some 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.360 you know propaganda lens, Yeah exactly. And that doesn't mean 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:13.240 like it's you should resist if you are invaded. Um, 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:15.520 But these are things that also should be noted, is 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.000 this is what happens when you resist, right that this 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.640 is what a modern war of this type looks like. 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:23.600 Other things that I'm not sure if they've been effective, 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.400 but they're certainly not bad strategies. Is the construction of 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:31.120 a lot of vehicle barriers, tank traps. But next is 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.480 the barricade thing, both than what we've been kind of 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:37.920 seeing or speculated about in the East, and then how 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.920 we've seen you know, barricade set ups a lot in 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.200 the past few years in various resistance movements to you know, 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:49.240 a variety of success levels and non success levels. Yeah, 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.000 and and and these are like, you know, barriers tank 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:54.760 traps of a very long history in warfare. So they 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:57.520 absolutely can be and have been effective many many times 0:13:57.520 --> 0:13:59.319 on the battlefield. So this is not an area of 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.120 does this thing work, but it is a question of 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:04.520 like and and this is something we just don't seem 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.920 to have perfect data on did it Did it particularly 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:10.720 play a role in what's happening here? And Um, that's 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.440 harder to tell. Um, And it's probably going to be different, 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.360 you know, depending on the tactical in an area you're 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.640 talking about, which kind of like theater you're talking about. 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:22.600 But um, you know one thing that's like the way 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:26.720 in which these kind of barriers hedgehoggs and like whatnot work. 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.080 Is there there an area denial tool. It's like an 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:33.960 area denial tool four vehicles, um. And it makes military 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.720 units slow down, it makes them take more time in 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.920 clearing area. Um. They have to tow things away or 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.200 blow them up. Um. And they also can provide, depending 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:45.200 on the type of thing, cover for infantry and in 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.400 urban combat situations, which obviously can cut both ways a 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.080 little bit. But there's a reason why you see these 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:53.480 kinds of things in every conflict and also a reason 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.440 why people put them up in protests. It can be 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.520 very useful to deny the vehicles of the enemy access 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.760 to an area temporarily, and a big pile of metal 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:07.040 always does that of the time. It requires something to 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:09.400 deal with it. Yeah, that was something that was very 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.360 kind of considered when there was an increase in like 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:16.280 vehicular attacks, UH, during like a lot of vehicles running 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:20.040 into a massive, massive marches, there was definitely a concerted 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:24.320 effort to try to block off streets where stuff is happening, 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.880 whether that be like you know, corkers for marches of 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:30.080 people who specifically block off the sides of streets with 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.680 their own cars to follow the march around, or you know, 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:35.440 less less effective arricades like throwing a chain lenk fence 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:37.560 in the middle of the street, which is I guess 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.320 better than nothing sometimes but also maybe not the most 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:43.200 effective thing. Yeah, in terms of trying to like build 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:47.360 layered barricades, that's not just you know, one flimsy wall, 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.320 but it's a series of things that can compress down. 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.960 And when you're talking about barricades in a kind of 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:57.400 militant situation, there's there's broadly speaking, got to be two purposes. 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:02.880 One of those purposes is to create a to add 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.640 to the friction that you are attempting to create for 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.120 the enemy. And that's that's all insurge. All insurgeon warfare 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:13.760 is about creating friction, right, because friction degrades assets. It's 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:16.360 over time. It it called basically like, Okay, so say 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:17.960 you've blocked off a bunch of roads and you've added 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:22.160 fifteen twenty miles to the transport distance that this convoy 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:25.240 has to go. Well, generally speaking, in the case of war. 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.360 When we're talking about war, it's assumed that about one 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.360 mile is in terms of wear and tear like tins 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:35.120 plus miles um. Because of how much more difficult the 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.960 strain on vehicles is in those situations. So you've added 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.400 a great deal more strain on the vehicles. That increases 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:42.120 the chance that one of them is gonna blow a tire, 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:43.960 one of them gonna crack an axle, one of them 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.320 is going to have an engine block go like blow 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.760 or whatever, um. Which means over time, if you're doing 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:51.600 this a bunch, if you're setting up de ricades and 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.560 you're effectively increasing or all the amount of travel time 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:57.600 or at least the amount of idoling time that forces 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:02.000 have to go in by a significant amount, you're guaranteeing 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.119 a certain number of those vehicles are going to break 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:06.399 or be rendered inoperable in that time. And you're also 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.200 the other thing that they do is they allow you 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:14.080 to deny area and funnel the enemy into a specific 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.240 into a place more advantageous for you, right, And this 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:19.360 can be advantageous if you're trying to set up an ambush, 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:21.439 if you're just trying to buy time for forces to 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.639 move back to a better position. UM it can you know, 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:26.840 there's a number of uses for it. But if you 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.280 set up a series of obstacles like this and guarantee 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:32.160 that they're going to have to find an alternate route, 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:34.800 and you know, broadly speaking, because it's your terrain, what 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.159 kind of route they're going to take, UM, then you 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:39.479 could do stuff like drop throw a drone at them, 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:41.840 or if because of the damage you've done to the 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:43.960 roads and the difficulty of how difficult you made it 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:46.040 to advance, they wind up just parked for a long time. 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:49.000 That's also a great situation to bomb people with a drone, 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:52.760 which is by far the most effective weapons unit that 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.760 we have seen built by civilians in this war. By 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.680 the way, UH, it's not molotovs, it's certainly not paint. 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:04.560 It is UH civilian volunteers who put together combat drones 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:09.000 using generally d j I drones that they have upgraded 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:13.360 with thermal imaging cameras in order to see at night, 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.120 and they have used three D printed parts in order 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:18.840 to drop bombs from UM and they have done carried 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:23.440 out for weeks now hundreds of extremely successful nighttime raids 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.000 on Russian positions. This has been effective for a couple 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:28.440 of reasons. One of them is that the Russian military 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.480 does not widespread half effective night vision. Um. We don't 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.120 need to get The reasons for this are complicated, based 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:37.639 in a mix of like appropriations, corruption, issues with the 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.800 technologies they do have, YadA, YadA, YadA, but they do 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:43.760 not have the capacity in large scale to carry out 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.160 operations at night to the extent that the Ukrainians do. UM. 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.600 And so you get when nighttime comes, these forces that 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:54.000 were advancing in places like Kiev clustering up and huddling 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:56.680 for the night, and then these hunter killer drones would 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.240 sneak in at night and they are impossible to fucking 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:01.280 see in data them. I can tell you from experience 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:05.440 at night, their ghosts just dropping bombs on on armored 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:09.480 vehicles and on groups of soldiers. UM. And these you 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:11.439 know what you have seen with these units which have 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.480 been integrated. They are like started out as civilian volunteer groups. 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.919 They have been integrated into the military to a significant extent. 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.160 And I think what you do have some of this 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:23.119 is conjecture on my part, but you've had a lot 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:26.399 of Russian officers in generals killed generally because they have 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.840 been communicating over open phone lines, and I suspect some 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.040 of what's been going on is when they figure out 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:33.639 where one of these guys is, they send some of 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:35.720 these fucking drone units and to blow them up, because 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.119 it's not hard if you know where someone is to 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.680 kill them with a drone in this way, I think 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:42.560 the other thing to talk about in terms of, you know, 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:46.840 building obstacles building barricades is the whole cover versus concealment 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:48.760 thing where a lot of people think that if they 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:52.440 hide behind a barricade, there now impervious, which obviously isn't 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:55.040 true if a drone is gonna get you, and obviously 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.119 isn't true for a large a large number of the 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:03.120 ammunitions that get fired, whether they be blitz or tank grounds. Yeah, yeah, 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:05.920 I mean it's and I think that's something in videos 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:09.800 I have watched of Russian soldiers responding to contact, you 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.200 have seen a lot of people in ambushes that they 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:16.840 lost hiding behind vehicles, um which if it's an armored 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:19.879 vehicle definitely can protect you from small arm fire, but 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.960 if somebody shoots that vehicle with a with a javelin, 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.679 you may find yourself next to a cooking off tank UM. 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:31.400 And I've seen like people hiding behind fucking fences, which 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:35.480 is terrible to hide behind, UM, failing to go to ground, 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.560 which is always your best bet is to kind of 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:40.440 get behind a burm or something, get load of the 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:43.200 fucking ground. And it's It's interesting to me a lot 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:45.800 of the worst videos of responding to contact that I've 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:48.560 seen on the Russian side have been there the Ross 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:51.720 Guardia units. I'm not great at pronouncing Russian, but they 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:56.000 are essentially police special forces units. That actually makes sense. 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:00.240 They have every video I've seen of these guys hand 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.280 being ambushed very poorly because they're not trained for that. 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:06.120 They're trained to go bust into a house and arrest somebody, 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:09.240 you know, like this is not where they're what they're 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:13.000 supposed to be doing. The other thing that Spencer really 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:17.600 focuses on is this whole like um sniper idea of 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:21.159 of being afraid of someone, of someone just cutting you 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.359 down from above, which obviously kind of is you know, 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:26.760 more of a thing with the drone stuff as well, 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:29.919 but this idea of not even being good at firearms, 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:32.359