The War in the Ukraine

My Assesment of the Ukraine War after 2 months:

Russia cannot fight a war against 1 million strong army supplied by the whole NATO with just 200K soldiers.

They are having serious trouble just to advance 1-2 miles in Donbass due to lack of manpower. No matter powerful and sophisticated Russia is, they cannot take ground while outnumbered 3-4 times.

People seems to have forgotten what made Soviet Union such a strong military power. They spent 30% of their GDP on the Military and had 5-6 million troops under active duty at all times. They won WW2 with 12 million strong Army.

Even US had 700K troops during the first Gulf war against the Iraq Army. And they had the advantage of being able to use 600+ modern fighter jets from Air force plus several hundred jets from the navy. They also had the advantage of huge load of PGMs.

Russian Air Force is tiny by comparison. Its actual fighter force is like 800 planes. Most of their Air force is just transporters. Much smaller than China. They are probably using about 100-200 planes for the Ukraine fight while keeping the rest for a war with Nato. That's why Russian Air Force presence seems so low in this war. They also lack PGM to bomb Ukraine positions from high altitude and speed, thus counteracting air defense.

Ukraine has the same tech that Soviet Union had in terms of ground force. So they have a vast tank and Artillery army. Now they are also getting ATGM and drones from Nato. They also have lots of S-300 level Air defense which are one of the best ones in the world. Combine that with mass mobilization of millions of troops. They also have literally unlimited amount of Money coming from the US and EU with a combined GDP of 40 trillion dollars. Unlimited resources and supplies.


The situation is hopeless for Russia unless they Mass mobilize several million troops. They do have thousands of tanks and artillery in reserve thanks to Soviet investments. So, if they do mobilize, they can still win this.

Otherwize, as the time goes on, their troops will be outnumbered as Ukraine loads up with more and more men and weapons. Russia will lose if they don't mobilize right away.

Janiz said:

I've heard that Russians are using jamming devices actively in the Donbas front. Unfortunately for them it's a little too effective...

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It is effective, but jamming devices are really easy to target with artillery.

Overbom said:

Russia could look online to buy some anti-drone equipment and distribute them in the front lines. They are quite cheap imo

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First off, if they wanted such systems, they would not be looking online themselves, but rather asking for hints from the PLA on which vendors and systems to look into.

Secondly and more importantly, the Russians themselves use a lot of drones, with a lot being commercial ones.

Jammers like the one above gets around the biggest problems with countering modern UAVs (the sheer number of UAVs that could potentially be deployed into a small area, and IFF) by simply not dealing with them and jam everything. Which might be as big of a problem as it is an asset if deploying such systems cripples every UAV in effective range of the system. Which I think is the main reason we are not seeing these things deployed. Both sides value their own drones too much to want to clear the field of all drones.

There were news of Russian storming azovstal, did it happen or fake news?

tamsen_ikard said:

Russian Air Force is tiny by comparison. Its actual fighter force is like 800 planes. Most of their Air force is just transporters. Much smaller than China. They are probably using about 100-200 planes for the Ukraine fight while keeping the rest for a war with Nato. That's why Russian Air Force presence seems so low in this war. They also lack PGM to bomb Ukraine positions from high altitude and speed, thus counteracting air defense.

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No, I think they are using most of the aircraft they can use. They will have limited need for air combat fighters since Ukraine has next to no air force right now. Most aircraft will be either fighter bombers or ground attack aircraft. The most modern platform they have for that is the Su-34. And there were only 130 of those made. I think I heard they are also using the Su-24M2 now that ground based Ukrainian air defenses have thinned out a bit. But even then there are only 80 of those.
Only a limited amount of Su-25 were upgraded to Su-25SM3 status which has thermal vision and SVP-24 system similar to the one in Su-24M2. That upgrade only started after experience in Syria and the older Su-25SM is not nearly as capable. Without those upgrades the combat helicopters would be more effective I think. Some aircraft, like the Su-35, are multirole capable but might be kept in reserve for combat against what enemy aircraft do show up. And training for ground attack missions might not be that common.

I also think you guys give too much importance to JDAM. US and Soviet bomb designs are different. Soviet bombs are fatter and the tail design they use means they will have a lower spread once you do release them than US ones. It would also add little in missions against air defense systems. What I think would be more useful would be glide bombs. And yes those are lacking in numbers. The K029BE and K08BE only entered production around 2019. But those have been seen in combat use over Ukraine already. They have 40km range and should be effective against the mid range air defense systems like the Osa and maybe the Buk.

tamsen_ikard said:

The situation is hopeless for Russia unless they Mass mobilize several million troops. They do have thousands of tanks and artillery in reserve thanks to Soviet investments. So, if they do mobilize, they can still win this.

Otherwize, as the time goes on, their troops will be outnumbered as Ukraine loads up with more and more men and weapons. Russia will lose if they don't mobilize right away.

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Russia produces more tanks than all of NATO combined. Well they wouldn't outproduce NATO if they geared their economies towards war by building new facilities. But that isn't something you can do in a year or two. Making ventilators is a lot easier than making tanks, and we know how well that turned out.

SampanViking said:

Do we actually know if this is what is indeed happening?
TO me it would make more sense to send these conscripts to the rear echelons and free up more professionals and reservists to go to the front.
Then again, if you are counting on massive infusions of modern NATO heavy weapons and you need the time to train up your best to operate them competently, you may simply need fodder to literally clog up the front lines and keep them as near static as possible while your "New Model Army" is being trained up.

Why exactly they do need this mobilisation is a mystery to me. Surely they have enough pro's and reservists in the field already?
Old men and boys are what you call up when everything is gone and you are facing overwhelming odds.

Correct me if I am wrong, but is not the actual Ukrainian Military over quarter of a million strong without counting the National Guard, Border Force and Reservists?

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All footage I'm seeing of Ukrainian soldiers around Kiev and in the west seem to be the dad's army type. I'm sure the majority of Ukraine's prewar army was deployed on the eastern front at the start of hostilities.

I bet Ukrainian military planners are regretting letting so many western mercenaries leave, they need everyone they can get. To my knowledge they are still turning away western military age volunteers because they have no fighting experience.

I'm not sure there's much of a distinction between a Ukrainian reservist and a conscript. If I was a planner I'd put conscripts/reservists with more experienced soldiers. Losing all your best soldiers in the east will mean if they are defeated you'll have a weak army to defend the rest of the country.

From what I heard they pulled some troops from Odessa back to Western Ukraine. So they might be trying to constitute a mobile reserve of sorts. But it remains to be seen what will happen. And if they do have mechanized units not in the northeast they are probably around Nikolayev. If they do have them. It seems to me most of the mechanized and armored units are actually around Kharkov right now.

Abominable said:

All footage I'm seeing of Ukrainian soldiers around Kiev and in the west seem to be the dad's army type. I'm sure the majority of Ukraine's prewar army was deployed on the eastern front at the start of hostilities.

I bet Ukrainian military planners are regretting letting so many western mercenaries leave, they need everyone they can get. To my knowledge they are still turning away western military age volunteers because they have no fighting experience.

I'm not sure there's much of a distinction between a Ukrainian reservist and a conscript. If I was a planner I'd put conscripts/reservists with more experienced soldiers. Losing all your best soldiers in the east will mean if they are defeated you'll have a weak army to defend the rest of the country.

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What's your opinion on Ukraine throwing warm bodies to the front lines in order to buy time so that it can ready more western-trained troops equipped with western high tech equipment.

So basically, you have 200 inexperienced men. You send 100 to the frontlines to buy time in order to train the other half so that it gets some combat capability

From what I have read, there are multiple training camps next to Ukraine which are training Ukrainian men

Overbom said:

What's your opinion on Ukraine throwing warm bodies to the front lines in order to buy time so that it can ready more western-trained troops equipped with western high tech equipment.

So basically, you have 200 inexperienced men. You send 100 to the frontlines to buy time in order to train the other half so that it gets some combat capability

From what I have read, there are multiple training camps next to Ukraine which are training Ukrainian men

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It is retarded. Their only chance is Russia making a prolonged cease fire. I mean a several years long one.

People here talked about the New Model Army. Well, the New Model Army worked, because it took less time to train a musketeer with volley fire formations than a swordsman or cavalryman. You can't train tank crews or, worse, fighter pilots quickly. The more high tech equipment they give to Ukraine the less effective it will be. In theory the infantry missiles should have been the best choice and most of those were sent already. Artillery isn't exactly something you can learn how to operate effectively in a short time either. Especially the one Ukraine is using. NATO had 8 years to train Ukraine's army. If they didn't manage to do a proper job the first time around, what makes you think they will be able to do it in the time this war will last?