Some perspective on the Maripoul steel plant the Russians are afraid to enter

[Tomconroy]

Link to tweet

Check out the entire thread.

[Haggis 4 Breakfast]

1. For those of us NOT on twitter,

could you perhaps provide some context here ?

[Trailrider1951]

3. The twitter entries show the outline footprint of Azovstal

as compared to many cities: Tokyo, Madrid, Rome, etc. This illustrates just how freakin huge this place is.

[Haggis 4 Breakfast]

4. That STILL does not address the post line of why

the Russians are hesitant to move in on the plant. If they have superior manpower and materiel, then what is stopping them ? I just wanted clarity. Now, I'm more confused than before.

[Tomconroy]

5. They aren't very good soldiers and are unwilling to enter territory with

which they are not familiar and can easily be ambushed. You have to train for this kind of urban warfare and the Ivans don't do that.
Inside the steel plant the advantages in numbers and armor don't count for much.

[Haggis 4 Breakfast]

7. So, you think they would be defeated if they enter ?

putin claimed victory over the plant and the warriors inside, but he hasn't accomplished that, just more braggadocio on his part. I suspect that the Ukrainians inside will never surrender. Maybe they can hold off the Russian soldiers. But for how long ? Without food, water and replacement of weapons, how long before it gets ugly.

Some news was just reported out that putin promises to kill POWs. He is human filth and must be deposed. By any means necessary.

[Tomconroy]

8. It's hard to know what's going on in there. Some videos have

surfaced this weekend and the kids look ok. Probably a lot of stuff was stored in there and there are some indications that they are being resupplied a bit.
According to the arm chair generals the Azov were going to be over run a couple of weeks ago. A Russian general said you could drop a nuclear bomb on the plant and not penetrate it.
We'll see. I try to be optimistic. The Russians did pull out their decent troops this weekend.

[Haggis 4 Breakfast]

9. Could it be

that the steel plant is "hardened" ?? I seem to recall some talk of "bunker buster" bombs.

Strange, that. Maybe more goes on there than just steel production, or has in the past ?

[Tomconroy]

10. It seems pretty clear the bombing is ineffective. These are massive buildings that go deep undergrou

and the complex is connected by underground tunnels. To take it you would have to go in and fight yard by treachurous yard. It's not even clear how many soldiers are in there. It could be as many as 4500.

As long as they can get food and ammo they can sit there a long time. If things are really bad my guess is they will fight there way out.

[Haggis 4 Breakfast]

19. I remain perplexed at why a steel mill

was constructed in such a fashion. I didn't realize there were so many people in there.

Slava Ukraini !

[WarGamer]

17. A thermobaric explosion anywhere underground would kill most inside.

But the public knows there are many women and children there so I doubt the Russians would do it.

The pressure blast and rapid push-pull of air through the tunnels, etc... would be deadly.

[Tomconroy]

18. Since when did the Ivans care about women and children?

[Mr.Bill]

22. The way the Russians have been acting

it would be an incentive to bomb it.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Here is the image in the tweet (and the text)

(and as a note - I did read somewhere that the facility was "hardened" and there was supposedly something the size of a small city underground)

TEXT

Ґаута́ма
@ArthurGautama
Azovstal (Mariupol, Ukraine) vs Venice
Image
9:10 AM · Apr 23, 2022

The other tweets in the series from the account are similarly comparing the size of the facility - as an overlay - to other locations around the world (like the above one overlaying the facility on a map of the city of Venice).

Ґаута́ма
@ArthurGautama
·
53m
Azovstal (6.8% of Mariupol, Ukraine) vs Sydney (Australia)
Image

Ґаута́ма
@ArthurGautama
·
55m
Azovstal (6.8% of Mariupol, Ukraine) vs Australian cities (Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra)

Ґаута́ма
@ArthurGautama
·
1h
Azovstal (6.8% of Mariupol, Ukraine) vs Kabul (Afghanistan), Dushanbe (Tajikistan), Ashgabat (Turkmenistan), Tehran (Iran)

And there are a pile more here - https://twitter.com/ArthurGautama

(I don't have a twitter account either but use the "web version" of twitter accounts like that above link to see the tweets and use the various news media twitter web pages to get right to an article for LBN).

I went scrolling through the list and found a couple comparisons to U.S. cities -

Ґаута́ма
@ArthurGautama
Azovstal (Mariupol, Ukraine) vs San Francisco (USA)
Image
9:40 AM · Apr 23, 2022·Twitter Web App

Ґаута́ма
@ArthurGautama
Azovstal (Mariupol, Ukraine) vs Washington (USA)
Image
9:50 AM · Apr 23, 2022

Ґаута́ма
@ArthurGautama
Azovstal (Mariupol, Ukraine) vs Hollywood (LA, USA)
Image
9:35 AM · Apr 23, 2022

Ґаута́ма
@ArthurGautama
Azovstal (Mariupol, Ukraine) vs Ukrainian Village (Chicago, USA)
Image
9:45 AM · Apr 23, 2022·Twitter Web App

[Haggis 4 Breakfast]

20. Call me a nitwit.

NOW I get it. It took the overlay of San Francisco - where I lived for a decade - to understand. The City (Yes, I still refer to it that way.), is 47 square miles, so a facility of that size is just HUGE.

[BumRushDaShow]

23. I had the opportunity to go to San Francisco

for a training course almost 20 years ago and made it a point to do my own touring on pubic transit around the city during my off time. I did about 2/3rd of the city that way!

I will say that my first day there, I was floored to see that someone had spray-painted the words "FUCK BUSH" in huge letters, on an empty billboard at the top of one of the buildings (near the Embarcadero and the Bay Bridge). If anything was needed to confirm where I was, that was it.

The U.S. probably has the ability to have a similar size/type of "campus" facility just due to the huge size of this country (and as I understand, China actually has "underground cities" ). But it is definitely good to put the plant into perspective regarding what would be involved in attacking it.

In comparison, the extensive underground system associated with the U.S. Capitol is depicted here -



The plant's overlay on a map of Washington D.C. stops just to the northwest of where the U.S. Capitol complex is and I have that Capitol area circled in red below (ETA I just added the Pentagon comparison too - circled in blue) -

[The Unmitigated Gall]

2. Wow. Wish there was some way to drone in food and ammo.

From what I've read, the place is like a slice of the Vietnam back country, but in multiple levels.

[unc70]

12. Maybe remote controlled Black Hawks?

Don't know if they are ready yet. Probably too soon.

[The Unmitigated Gall]

14. SOMETHING, dammit.

They could piss Pootler off for months, unless he went nuclear. Maybe.

[Haggis 4 Breakfast]

21. I'm more worried about biological or chemical weapons as they literally have TONS of that.

[keithbvadu2]

6. Russian sniper move 'Enemy at the Gates' with Jude Law and Ron Perlman.

Russian sniper move 'Enemy at the Gates'

with Jude Law and Ron Perlman.

An industrial plant.

The Russians were the good guys in that movie against the Nazis.

Now the Russians are the Nazis.

[WarGamer]

16. Yes, in Stalingrad. The Stalingrad Tractor Factory.

[WarGamer]

15. Hypothetically... if you trap a black widow spider in a pickle jar...

It's harmless and I wouldn't suggest sticking your hand into the jar to remove it.

The Russians will wait them out... cut off the food and water.

Why send soldiers inside?