The War in the Ukraine

tankphobia said:

I cannot see how using current tactics from both sides will result in any high casualty rates. For the most part combat is conducted in squad/platoon scale with only dozens of men dead maximum even if a whole thrust involving multiple armored vehicles were wiped out.

Much of the committed armored vehicles for the Ukranian side consist of various flavours of MRAPs which even when immobilized/hit a mine keeps the crew inside in relative good shape.

We don't even see footage of large scale infantry assualts that would generate such high volume of casualties. The only period which I think would've been especially painful would be Bakhmut. None of the offensive actions seem like it would've caused 1+ million casualties.

This is the purported exerpt from the grayzone article, which uses a trashy methodology to artificially inflate casualty rates, since the nature of the two wars are completely different. How would you even compare COIN against an actual war?



As before when extrapolating data, garbage in -> garbage out.

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Biscuits said:

Let's not downplay other invasions of countries as "COIN" when they have the same level of legality as the Ukraine one.

While I agree that the invasion of Afghanistan is on a different (lower) level of intensity vs the invasion of Ukraine, I don't see how this would lead to the article using that to, as you say, "artificially inflate casualty rates".

If extrapolating Ukrainian losses based on American losses is an exaggeration, what you're implying is that an Ukrainian soldier wounded from combat in the Donbass has a BETTER chance of returning to his unit, getting medical care and surviving than an American soldier wounded in Afghanistan. Or an American soldier wounded in Vietnam.

That paints a much more dismal picture of American forces than what is commonly believed.

What is more likely, there being some unknown factor behind vastly excessive mortality in the US forces when they are on the offensive, or Ukraine has simply sustained heavy losses due to sustained assault and sweeping mobilisation gives them the ability to take the losses in the short term?

Overall, the study method isn't anywhere near accurate, but it gives us at least some idea which ballpark the losses are in, which might be the best we have, given that NATO is insisting on a censorship order on the numbers. Garbage terminology is a result of only garbage data being available.

If there is no dispute on the amputees figure, that shows that the casualties are very high, several 100 000s at least. Hasn't been a war in history where amputees even come close to outnumbering the non-amputee wounded and dead.

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tankphobia said:

The stats are based entirely on amputation, which while part of wounded does not paint the whole picture.

What I'm implying is that, the US troops have a much better chance of getting medievac'd in time such that amputation is not always going to be required to save the life of the soldier. Using that 2.8% figure as the baseline when it's what's possible with the best medical care just appears to be a deliberate attempt to inflate casualty figures.

What if due to limited resources and long frontline say 10% of Ukrainian wounded needs to be amputated instead of 2.8%? From the figure posted using the same extrapolation method it goes from 700k-1.8M to 200k-500k. While the article cites a US study that amputated-wounded ratio is roughly the same across different wars, It's also from the US which had been able to establish an extensive support network in every war which I do not believe Ukraine has access to.

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tankphobia said:

Normally in PLA focused threads people are more level headed when assessing data and stats, it's only this thread where even flimsy evidence is somehow accepted as long as it paints the West in a negative light.

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tankphobia said:

I cannot see how using current tactics from both sides will result in any high casualty rates. For the most part combat is conducted in squad/platoon scale with only dozens of men dead maximum even if a whole thrust involving multiple armored vehicles were wiped out.

Much of the committed armored vehicles for the Ukranian side consist of various flavours of MRAPs which even when immobilized/hit a mine keeps the crew inside in relative good shape.

We don't even see footage of large scale infantry assualts that would generate such high volume of casualties. The only period which I think would've been especially painful would be Bakhmut. None of the offensive actions seem like it would've caused 1+ million casualties.

This is the purported exerpt from the grayzone article, which uses a trashy methodology to artificially inflate casualty rates, since the nature of the two wars are completely different. How would you even compare COIN against an actual war?



As before when extrapolating data, garbage in -> garbage out.

Click to expand...

tankphobia said:

The stats are based entirely on amputation, which while part of wounded does not paint the whole picture.

What I'm implying is that, the US troops have a much better chance of getting medievac'd in time such that amputation is not always going to be required to save the life of the soldier. Using that 2.8% figure as the baseline when it's what's possible with the best medical care just appears to be a deliberate attempt to inflate casualty figures.

What if due to limited resources and long frontline say 10% of Ukrainian wounded needs to be amputated instead of 2.8%? From the figure posted using the same extrapolation method it goes from 700k-1.8M to 200k-500k. While the article cites a US study that amputated-wounded ratio is roughly the same across different wars, It's also from the US which had been able to establish an extensive support network in every war which I do not believe Ukraine has access to.

Normally in PLA focused threads people are more level headed when assessing data and stats, it's only this thread where even flimsy evidence is somehow accepted as long as it paints the West in a negative light.

Click to expand...

tankphobia said:

I cannot see how using current tactics from both sides will result in any high casualty rates. For the most part combat is conducted in squad/platoon scale with only dozens of men dead maximum even if a whole thrust involving multiple armored vehicles were wiped out.

Much of the committed armored vehicles for the Ukranian side consist of various flavours of MRAPs which even when immobilized/hit a mine keeps the crew inside in relative good shape.

We don't even see footage of large scale infantry assualts that would generate such high volume of casualties. The only period which I think would've been especially painful would be Bakhmut. None of the offensive actions seem like it would've caused 1+ million casualties.

This is the purported exerpt from the grayzone article, which uses a trashy methodology to artificially inflate casualty rates, since the nature of the two wars are completely different. How would you even compare COIN against an actual war?



As before when extrapolating data, garbage in -> garbage out.

Click to expand...