The War in the Ukraine

SampanViking

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There were news of Russian storming azovstal, did it happen or fake news?
I have seem the claims from Kiev but nothing to corroborate the statements.
Bombardment of the Factory continues certainly, but nothing indicates any storming by the ground forces
But hey, it means you can claim you fought off the attackers, even retook buildings you initially lost!
 

pmc

Major
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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.
It is not tiny when you look at actual capability and staying power/sortie generation over the battlefield.
Not only Su-34/Su-25/Su-24 can fly with pretty big fuel tanks but heavy attack choppers also have fuel tanks. if there is need they can deploy Tu-22M. if Ukraine has serious air defense left. they would have shot down alot more aircraft and cruise missiles with verifiable damage of missiles. not any technical mishaps. Flying low is not just give surprize but potentially take more targets in one pass using guns and rockets.
they have confidence to win and may also want to test and refine tactics on Ukraine.
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Abominable

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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
First - the idea that western trained means they are better is a myth. Look at Afghanistan, Iraq, even Vietnam. Each had western training for years and when shit hit the fan they collapsed. Despite the better technology they performed worse than their predecessors e.g. I don't think Saddam's army would run away from ISIS. American/NATO training aims to turn soldiers of other nations/cultures into American soldiers, which doesn't work. You need to adapt your training and goals to the local culture.

Ukraine needs to acknowledge their best soldiers are the ones they have now. The people were naturally inclined to serve before it was popular and have had several years of domestic training.
Throwing them away in the hope that a new conscript NATO army will be better is stupid.
 

Temstar

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Okay... Seems like for whatever reason some Ukrainians think there's an attack coming for the bridge linking Crimea to Russia.

The cringeness of it aside are the Russian units in the south that originally launched from Crimea still supplied from Crimea? Because that's actually a really long supply tail if the supplies for them actually come from Krasnodar or something.
 

SampanViking

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First - the idea that western trained means they are better is a myth. Look at Afghanistan, Iraq, even Vietnam. Each had western training for years and when shit hit the fan they collapsed. Despite the better technology they performed worse than their predecessors e.g. I don't think Saddam's army would run away from ISIS. American/NATO training aims to turn soldiers of other nations/cultures into American soldiers, which doesn't work. You need to adapt your training and goals to the local culture.

Ukraine needs to acknowledge their best soldiers are the ones they have now. The people were naturally inclined to serve before it was popular and have had several years of domestic training.
Throwing them away in the hope that a new conscript NATO army will be better is stupid.
I don't think that is what was being said.
One part of both Overbom and my statements were to do with sacrificing raw conscripts (a raw recruit being a newly inducted man physically capable of being a professional soldier as opposed to a raw conscript who is not and never will be) so that the Professional fighting men can learn to use NATO Heavy Weapons.
The Western training is about the long period needed to achieve competence with these weapons and to build the maintenance and support eco systems that such weapons and their ammunition require.
 

Gloire_bb

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An infantryman in the end needs infantry training. Key parts of modern infantry training were established no later than by the end of WW1. There is no magic here, just the available capacity of this training(the more instructors - the more personal time and attention an individual conscript will get - the better are his chances to not die due to his or his squad leaders' basic neglect and mistakes).

Given how Ukrainian defense (and actually offense, too) works* - they don't really need supersoldiers. They need a lot of them with at least basic skills(and as we can see, even really badly trained ones are actually resilient enough when backed up by those who know what they're doing), though, and mobilization provides Ukraine with ample supply of that resource.

Russian army, on the other hand, had huge problems with anything infantry since the 1960s (there is almost no true infantry in RU army in the first place), and it really shows - there is simply no men to even properly control that it has, much less to attack more.

*basically infantry screen (of company strongpoints) held together through artillery fires. It's really cynical of them, but if reinforcements come up faster than Russian artillery grinds them out - and infantry in camouflaged field fortifications is quite resilient to fires, - the ratio works out for the Ukrainian side.

The cringeness of it aside are the Russian units in the south that originally launched from Crimea still supplied from Crimea? Because that's actually a really long supply tail if the supplies for them actually come from Krasnodar or something.
Crimea itself is a mighty logistical hub.
 

Abominable

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Okay... Seems like for whatever reason some Ukrainians think there's an attack coming for the bridge linking Crimea to Russia.

The cringeness of it aside are the Russian units in the south that originally launched from Crimea still supplied from Crimea? Because that's actually a really long supply tail if the supplies for them actually come from Krasnodar or something.
It takes a lot of explosives to take down a bridge that size. Also look where it is on the map. Ukrainians would have to cross the entire of Crimea to get to it.

Also it would be weird to get announce the date and time you were planning your attack. I think that website is a prank.

I think the bulk of supplies for Crimea come via sea. That bridge has only been open for a few years.
 

Atomicfrog

Major
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It takes a lot of explosives to take down a bridge that size. Also look where it is on the map. Ukrainians would have to cross the entire of Crimea to get to it.

Also it would be weird to get announce the date and time you were planning your attack. I think that website is a prank.

I think the bulk of supplies for Crimea come via sea. That bridge has only been open for a few years.
The Crimea bridge would have been a good target for Ukraine in the first two weeks when they still had some kind of air power.

That bridge have a railroad half that can be used to route supply all over the south of Ukraine. It's clearly an asset. It could resupply Kherson fast if the railroad bridge crossing the Dnieper is still in one piece.
 

solarz

Brigadier
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.

Russia is just grinding away at Ukrainian forces right now with artillery, missile, and air strikes. They may be advancing slowly, but they're not under any time pressure.
 
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