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One of the main goals of this is to not have the russian gauge available in case russians attack, so that logistics deeper into Finland cant happen easily with

• potato3732842 1y ago
  It's not like this results in a categorical difference in difficulty. Gauge switching infrastructure is common at borders. Yeah stopping and switching is slower than driving right through but it's not the end of the world in the long tail of military logistics.
  • theshrike79 1y ago
    Russian military logistics _heavily_ depend on trains, everything that can go on a train, does so. Flight and vehicle stuff is mostly an afterthought. Any hindrance we can put on the Finnish-Russian border to stop them just unloading 12 cars of fresh troops in the middle of the country is a good thing.
    • paddy_m 1y ago
      Another fun note about Russian logistics, they aren't palletized or mechanized. Thought being that cranes don't look good in parades. The train side seems smart or at least interesting, the pallets incredibly dumb. https://x.com/TrentTelenko/status/1507056013245128716 https://x.com/TrentTelenko/status/1507056013245128716
      • jabl 1y ago
        Why invest in forklifts, container infrastructure etc. if your military has a near-endless supply of uneducated conscripts you can order to shuffle around shells and other items? (Of course a more thorough analysis would probably come to the conclusion that better logistics is worth it. There's still an opportunity cost for those conscripts who could do something else instead, like dying in zerg rushes on the Ukrainian front. And even though those conscripts are 'free' they still require chow and a place to sleep etc.)
        • smallstepforman 1y ago
          “ endless supply of uneducated conscripts “ Now you’re just being silly.
          • bluGill 1y ago
            Regardless of how much education they have - they are treated as uneducated.
      • kranke155 1y ago
        This is a debunked post I think.
        • IAmBroom 1y ago
          https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1507056013245128716.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1507056013245128716.html Your cite?
        • celticninja 1y ago
          i dont believe it is.
          • paddy_m 1y ago
            Trent and a lot of Ukranian war commentators have a habit of saying $X is catastrophic for the Russians (this is the worst on YouTube). Then those catastrophic things don't come to pass. Related, I have seen one guy, over and over say "Why isn't Ukraine hitting Russian electric train transformer stations". I don't have a good answer, most of Russia's rail network is electric, transformers blow up easily, there are many of them, and they would be very slow to replace. Ukraine clearly has deep strike capabilities, and Russia cant defend every transformer. I don't think it's a humanitarian issue, or at this point even an issue with the US telling Ukraine they can't hit those targets.
            • wkat4242 1y ago
              Transformers are not very hard to replace or make though. All they are is some copper wound around iron. It will just be some added frustration and annoyance for them but no gamechanger. If they start doing it a lot Russia will just build a bigger electrical workforce and more backstock. They have plenty of people and the authorianism to make them do whatever they want. It's just a pissing contest. Russia did lots of cyberattacks on the Ukrainian electrical network in the years before the invasion. Didn't do anything either but send a message. I would compare it to the Natanz cyber attack which reportedly cost a fortune and caused lots of business losses around the world. It only set the Iranian uranium refinement back a few percent. Then Obama comes and talks to them, strikes a deal. That solved the issue entirely and cost much less. Of course then Trump comes and messes it all up again but that's another story.
      • theshrike79 1y ago
        Compare this to the completely bonkers logistics of the US Military: https://youtu.be/iIpPuJ_r8Xg https://youtu.be/iIpPuJ_r8Xg Even Unicef has a massive logistics center in Denmark with pallets of stuff categorised and ready to be sent for any emergency: https://www.unicef.org/supply/warehousing-and-distribution https://www.unicef.org/supply/warehousing-and-distribution
        • wkat4242 1y ago
          Well yes but the US usually fights in faraway places to bring freedom (though the only thing they manage to 'liberate' is oil, see how Afghanistan and Iraq turned into hellholes as soon as they turned their backs) Russia just likes to kill the shit out of their neighbours which is a lot easier logistically.
          • theshrike79 1y ago
            And when most of their neighbours historically use the same rail gauge, it's a lot easier too :D
  • kibwen 1y ago
    Gauge switching requires trains outfitted with specialized axles (increasing the cost to invade), requires trains to stop (increasing the train's vulnerability to attack), and requires switching stations which themselves are juicy targets and can't be repaired nearly as trivially as an ordinary length of rail.
  • stuaxo 1y ago
    It adds time for each train though.
  • phkahler 1y ago
    And if you're Russia wanting to invade Europe, it's better to do the Gauge switching right near your own border rather than on the far side of Finland. So while this may make it harder to invade Finland, it makes it easier to invade Europe as a whole.
    • dcow 1y ago
      This. I am struggling to see how this is anything other than posturing by politicians. It’s hard to imagine this is strategy devised by military leaders.
    • gbear605 1y ago
      The far side of Finland? That’s the Baltic Sea. Sure, there’s a little bit of Sweden, but it’s so far north that there isn’t much rail infrastructure there - certainly little enough that it could quickly be destroyed at the beginning of a war.
      • _w1tm 1y ago
        If the supply line is blown up at the beginning of the war then what was the point of switching gauges.
      • dmurray 1y ago
        The stated reason for the gauge change is "to remove technical obstacles to transporting troops and goods between Finland, Sweden and Norway". Those few connections in the sparse north of the country are the entire point.
    • Cthulhu_ 1y ago
      The objective they try to achieve is not to slow down Russia's invasion into Europe, but to stop them at the border by being able to move assets throughout Europe relatively quickly. If they gain a proper foothold and full access to "euro gauge" rails, it's a different fight. Of course, if it does go that far, tanks and trains can move rolling stock, rip up the tracks, blow up bridges and other infrastructure behind them if they're forced to retreat.
• dotancohen 1y ago
  But if the Spanish can muster dual gauge trains, what's to prevent the Russians from doing the same? Or is the Finnish gauge a state secret?
  • theshrike79 1y ago
    The difference between Finnish and Russian gauge is 4mm IIRC the diff to European standard is closer to 10cm, still doable but a hurdle compared to just driving a trainload of troops to the middle of Helsinki it's a bit harder
    • dotancohen 1y ago
      > The difference between Finnish and Russian gauge is 4mm What is the acceptable tolerance? It doesn't sound like a huge engineering effort to design a boogie compatible with both without requiring switching.
      • anticensor 1y ago
        Yes, the acceptable tolerance is -4mm+7mm.
        • iggldiggl 1y ago
          Where? Finland specifically, or elsewhere? Both my local tram system in Germany as well as DB as the national infrastructure operator in Germany have construction tolerances of only +/- 2 mm. Maintenance tolerances on the other hand can be quite a bit larger, at least in the plus direction (on the order of 15/20/25 mm).
          • lazide 1y ago
            Sure, but thats Germans. I'm surprised it isn't specc'd in 10ths.
            • 1y ago
• adrianmsmith 1y ago
  > One of the main goals of this is to not have the russian gauge available in case russians attack This doesn't seem like it can be a goal given > maybe in 2032 we can start construction I mean unless the plan is to assume Russia won't attack until e.g. 2040 when construction will be complete && Russia can't implement multi-gauge trains that Spain is already using now?
  • kibwen 1y ago
    Even if Russia's conquest of Ukraine were to end tomorrow, they would take a few years to recover before mounting their next offensive. And Finland isn't first in line on their list of next invasion targets, that would be either Georgia, Moldova, or the Baltics. And in any case, just as in computer security, a security posture does not need to be unassailable, it just needs to be expensive enough to deter the enemy. NATO countries (well, the ones that haven't already been compromised by Russia) will be happy to fund the gauge switch, as would the EU in general for the sake of greater economic integration. Meanwhile, it increases the costs on Russia and slows their advance. It's a win no matter what.
    • vintermann 1y ago
      Russia can't just attack anywhere it wants to. Putin is not Kim Il-sung, he can't count on any order to be blindly obeyed. It took years of propaganda, unfortunately armed with a couple of actually good points (mostly supplied by the neonazi nationalist wing in Ukraine, who wanted a war), before he could try actually invading. He had to walk a dangerous game with his own, in particular with his own neonazi supporter Prigozhin, who could easily have come up on top in their inevitable conflict. He's absolutely not harmless, but neither should we allow ourselves to be distracted by phony countermeasures against the Russian threat, like this gauge shift thing clearly is in my opinion.
      • kibwen 1y ago
        As you suggest, Russia's invasion of Ukraine was bolstered by Russian sympathizers in the east. Every country bordering Russia is incentivized to break free of any sort of alignment with Russia in order to reduce the threat of local insurgency which will aid Russia in its invasion. For example, the Baltic countries removing Russian from their list of official languages, in addition to decoupling from the Russian power grid. There are a lot of steps to be taken, and a lot of them will take decades. Fortunately, Russia's capacity to wage war measured against their number of potential targets means that it would take them decades to reconquer it all, assuming Europe steps up to fund the defense. Train gauge alignment is just one of many steps towards this end, and the sooner the better.
• culopatin 1y ago
  Wouldn’t it be simpler to make a “train moat” by disconnecting rails from Russia? Or would they run the trains on dirt for a mile and re attach?
  • bobthepanda 1y ago
    Building temporary bridges in wartime is pretty normal.