They sit on their bum lobbing artillery and digging trenches while DPR, Wagner and Chechen attack. People are calling for mobilisation to be able to gain ground, not because they are gone... Invading Ukraine with just 300k is nonsense, you need more just to keep the front stable. It's why it's a standstill and all this operation is relying on standoff weapons. You cannot take or keep ground without enough troops.
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
Don’t speak about a subject you have no idea about
Reznikov also lied in the Western press about the Russian winter offensive. I recall it was "200,000" Russian reserve forces to make a new invasion. The Russians also did their own deception. We were all led by the nose.
I think it was Zaluzny in the Economist that claimed that the war in Ukraine is the war in Chechnya writ large. Then we have Gerasimov and the whole Russian military doctrine focused more on strategic, psychological, political and economic factors than tactical excellence.
I am starting to see familiar patterns as well, as a long war with stingy resource commitment, intentionally dragged out to impoverish and tire the Ukrainians for years. The Chechens were also economically destroyed. The building of divisions by 2025 is analogous to the serious reform effort than occurred before the larger invasion of the 2nd Chechen war.
I agree with this for the most part. This ukrainian offensive must be some surprising and brilliant stuff if it is to be successful.
However with one caveat: the Russian bum rushes (and huge losses of vehicles) that accompanied the first months of the war looked to me more as a way to gain ground as much ground as possible despite not having infantry. The results were disappointing but they still secured most of the prime real estate. They sacrificed armored vehicles to gain what they could otherwise not achieve with the careful application of combined arms and unit preservation.
I don't think a single anti-russian biased commentator has thought or even considered speaking this out.
This needs to be played with Red Alert Hell March on the background. DPR's new FPV drone army by the thousands and thousands.
A makeshift Ukrainian ammunition storage facility was drone spotted and Russian artillery took care of it.
Russian FPV drones attacking a Ukrainian trench position. Both sides have escalated on the use of FPV drones.
Incendiary attack on Ugledar. These things are launched from a BM-21 Grad MLRS.
A makeshift Ukrainian ammunition storage facility was drone spotted and Russian artillery took care of it.
Russian FPV drones attacking a Ukrainian trench position. Both sides have escalated on the use of FPV drones.
Incendiary attack on Ugledar. These things are launched from a BM-21 Grad MLRS.
Must I remind what I said again?
"Ukraine officials never gave a date when their offensive would begin it was journalist and folks like us who predicted/guessed it would be spring/late spring."
This is not a set DATE on when the offensive is going to begin this is a goal they want to reach. Don't you know the difference?
Once again not a date but a goal.
Again a goal/hope not a date.
This is an expectation not a date.
You get the point, right? Ukraine gave no date when the offensive would begin that would be pretty dumb to give the enemy the date of your attack.
I'm not going to respond to each quote and flood.
"Ukraine officials never gave a date when their offensive would begin it was journalist and folks like us who predicted/guessed it would be spring/late spring."
This is not a set DATE on when the offensive is going to begin this is a goal they want to reach. Don't you know the difference?
Once again not a date but a goal.
Again a goal/hope not a date.
This is an expectation not a date.
You get the point, right? Ukraine gave no date when the offensive would begin that would be pretty dumb to give the enemy the date of your attack.
I'm not going to respond to each quote and flood.
Is "spring" itself a date? Because there isn't much spring left, in fact solstice is in 3 weeks.
I think the interest is not so much a "gotcha" moment on Ukrainian officials getting the date of the counteroffensive wrong but rather if we could read delay of the counteroffensive as vindication that Bakhmut did in fact achieve the aim of luring AFU offensive capability to this battlefield and then grinding them down.
I recall way back last year, prior to the breakout at Soledar AFU was concentrating forces in Zaporizhzhia for a counteroffensive. This was shortly after Russian retreat from Kherson and after Putin enacted the partial mobilization but before the mobiks was trained and deployed. Russian were in a much weaker position compared to today with the additional manpower not yet available at the front and morale at a nadir. Wagner's antics at Soledar and Bakhmut drew in all the attention and AFU started to disassemble their formation in Zaporizhzhia to reinforce Bakhmut, buying time for Russia's regular army to get their act together.
The continue slipping of the counteroffensive date seems to me like a validation of Wagner's contribution to Russian war effort.
I think the interest is not so much a "gotcha" moment on Ukrainian officials getting the date of the counteroffensive wrong but rather if we could read delay of the counteroffensive as vindication that Bakhmut did in fact achieve the aim of luring AFU offensive capability to this battlefield and then grinding them down.
I recall way back last year, prior to the breakout at Soledar AFU was concentrating forces in Zaporizhzhia for a counteroffensive. This was shortly after Russian retreat from Kherson and after Putin enacted the partial mobilization but before the mobiks was trained and deployed. Russian were in a much weaker position compared to today with the additional manpower not yet available at the front and morale at a nadir. Wagner's antics at Soledar and Bakhmut drew in all the attention and AFU started to disassemble their formation in Zaporizhzhia to reinforce Bakhmut, buying time for Russia's regular army to get their act together.
The continue slipping of the counteroffensive date seems to me like a validation of Wagner's contribution to Russian war effort.
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One of the big variable is how muddy it is and it's still the mudfest... we didn't see a lot of wreckage of material that will be used for that presumed offensive beside one Slovak T-55 and some american Humvee and MRAP.
No AMX-10, no Bradley, no Leopard have been seen on the front. They don't look to have been grinded down on the material side. Maybe some ammo have been vaporized but I would be surprised that big amount of vehicules have been culled far from the front.
We will see if they can pull something interesting with these but if the Russian are not stargazing they will react accordingly to the formation of a murderball pushing somewhere.
Or simply since it was more rainy than expected and the date „spring“ is not meant as a certain calendric date … I’m pretty sure the offensive in it’s early phase is already going on even if not the way some of us expect …
They aren’t totally wrong. For the US, the average infantryman’s training pipeline is about 5 months (look into OSUT for more details). Of course, it takes more time for that soldier to get up to speed with the units and that is dependent on the unit, but the core training that is required for a professional soldier is 5 months.
However they are kind of mistaken for the 2 month aspect. In the US, the IRR (Individual Ready Reserve which are troops no longer in reserve or active duty) may need to attend 30 days of training per year for the remainder of their contract. Plus after mobilization there will be an emphasis on the most important aspects of their training during the first 30 days after mobilization. So there may be additional training after those 30 days.
On a seperate note, for the Ukrainians, according to the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade's (which is led by veterans from the Azov Regiment) recruitment site, the training time length from start to finish is 30 days. For the Russians, if I remember correctly, Wagner gives 10 weeks of training to their new recruits.
So, assuming the training is led well by experienced instructors, a 2 month pipeline is theoretically enough for those who served in the past.
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