The War in the Ukraine

Dragon of War

Dragon of War

Junior Member
Registered Member
TongHua said:
As a reminder it isn't about how many soldiers. It's about how many tanks. Sure, Ukraine may have millions of soldiers, but it only has limited number of tanks. You cannot do offensive on foot. You need tanks. Have you tried walking around slinging a gun all day? You won't last a few hours. Especially considering the fact Ukrainian men are quite old as far as age goes. They surely cannot do offensive on foot. What Russia needs are not millions of soldiers. What Russia needs are hundreds of drones to wipe out Ukraine's tanks. That'll stop Ukrainian offensives cold.
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I dunno if Russian industry has the capacity to construct a sophisticated drone army, resources are tight from what reports are saying. Major resources have already been dedicated to the war so far and drones require rare earth resources, trade is difficult for Russia at this time, only true trade partners being China and North Korea from what we know so far. China is trying to be discreet about what it gives as to not garner up any back lash its way, simple things like ammunition, tires for trucks and various spare part replacements.

In regards to Ukraine offensive capabilities, the anti-tank / air craft weaponry supplied is proven very effective. They have Armored Personal Carriers but the tanks Poland are supplying them with will make up the bulk of their armored forces including whatever they've managed to take from the Russians. The Ukrainians are getting a lot of supplies from Rich Western countries and we know how well American logistics are as evident with WW2.
 
siegecrossbow

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
delta115 said:
Getting tired of those pro-russian coping BS.

It's not Russia defeat that annoying me, it's their inability to accept and learn from it.

But again... even their top leader seem to chill about it So, why should anyone care?
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Some Chinese students in Russia (presumably near Black Sea) saw Russian conscripts chilling on the beach all day. It's almost as if there is no war going on.
 
tankphobia

tankphobia

Senior Member
Registered Member
TongHua said:
As a reminder it isn't about how many soldiers. It's about how many tanks. Sure, Ukraine may have millions of soldiers, but it only has limited number of tanks. You cannot do offensive on foot. You need tanks. Have you tried walking around slinging a gun all day? You won't last a few hours. Especially considering the fact Ukrainian men are quite old as far as age goes. They surely cannot do offensive on foot. What Russia needs are not millions of soldiers. What Russia needs are hundreds of drones to wipe out Ukraine's tanks. That'll stop Ukrainian offensives cold.
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If Russia can barely afford the money to modernize it's ground army what makes you think they can afford to pay a third party for hundreds of MALE attack drones? Note that amounts you are repeating over and over in this thread would cost to the tune of billions.
 
S

Sheleah

Junior Member
Registered Member
TongHua said:
It's about how many tanks. Sure, Ukraine may have millions of soldiers, but it only has limited number of tanks.
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Dragon of War said:
In regards to Ukraine offensive capabilities, the anti-tank / air craft weaponry supplied is proven very effective.
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The number of anti-tank weapons carried by the Ukrainian troops are usually in large numbers to alleviate the number of Russian armored vehicles, which is why they are packed with RPG-80, RPG-28, C-90, NLAW and Javelin in large quantities

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1568699473416830977

Ambushes are usually deadly for Russian units, and to this we must add attacks with armed or suicide drones, or observation drones that provide information to the artillery to attack Russian columns...

The Ukrainians have managed to efficiently use the available resources...
 
T

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
tphuang said:
They are still light on artillery compared to Russians. The difference is still very large. And more importantly, you can recruit as many people as you want as cannon fodders, but that's not going to work very well with modern weapons. Ukraine may claim it has 1 million soldiers, but the real number that can use modern weapons is going to be a fraction of that.

It's clear on the Russian side, LPR/DPR conscripts are not the same quality as Chechens or the more experienced Russian troops. Just handing people a gun and sending them out on the battle field doesn't work anymore. similarly, if Ukrainians are sending its elite troops to lead the charge (I don't know if they are) in Kherson and lost a bunch of them, that would be a big deal.


Why are you still on this "Russians ought to have crushed Ukrainians like a bug" nonsense? Seriously. Russians are what they are. I think we've followed this conflict long enough to know what they are. There will obviously be opportunities for Ukrainians as long as Russian occupies a larger territory with fewer troops. If you can get past this pre-conceived notion of what Russia should be, then their current performance is basically at where we have observed for a while now.

I'm not going to make prognostications on what will happen for the rest of this war. But to me, this particular battle is a case where Ukrainians caught Russians off guard in 1 location because it was not taking things seriously. Based on what we've seen, the Russians will adjust. And the Ukranians will adjust after that. I don't see this battle actually fundamentally change anything because the Russian combat strength didn't seem to decrease. They didn't lose any land that's easily defendable.

To me, this entire victory is more PR than anything else. Maybe this will force Russians military to do some attacks. I don't know.

I'm going to take it easy now. I just want to point out how ridiculous some of this hyperventilating has been.
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Not sure about LPR/DPR being not of the same quality as the Chechens. They seem far more determined to fight and hold their ground than the Russians. A good example is the BARS-16 unit that has reportedly repulsed several Ukrainian attacks in Liman. We can also mention the 'Somali' battalion and the 6th Cossacks Regiment. The LPR and DPR are both not part of the Russian Army command structure, so they will do otherwise regardless of the Russians.

The idea of 'conscripts' like you have during the Communist era needs to stop too. The Russians, the LPR/DPR are rotating experienced troops back to train conscripts and pass on their operational experience before sending them out.
 
FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
tankphobia said:
If Russia can barely afford the money to modernize it's ground army what makes you think they can afford to pay a third party for hundreds of MALE attack drones? Note that amounts you are repeating over and over in this thread would cost to the tune of billions.
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Russia could've afforded a ridiculously good ground force and air force, even Su-57s, if they gave up the Russian Navy outside ground based aviation, SSNs, SSBNs, corvettes and frigates.

Their white elephant SSGN, Kirov modernization, Slava modernization and Kuznetzov repair projects cost ~5 billion USD, enough money to buy dozens of Su-57s and MALE drones, hundreds of T-14s and NVG for everyone.

It's not like a few more cruisers will help Russia in any conflict, and while losing SSGNs is painful they will NEVER get to use them the way they're using tanks and tactical air.
 
G

gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
Dragon of War said:
I dunno if Russian industry has the capacity to construct a sophisticated drone army, resources are tight from what reports are saying. Major resources have already been dedicated to the war so far and drones require rare earth resources, trade is difficult for Russia at this time, only true trade partners being China and North Korea from what we know so far. China is trying to be discreet about what it gives as to not garner up any back lash its way, simple things like ammunition, tires for trucks and various spare part replacements.
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I don't know why you think Russia cannot make drones. Sure they are behind China and they cannot mass manufacture cheap drones because they lack the electronics industry for it, but they have MALE drones like the Orion.
View attachment 97438

They still have issues with supply and fabrication but just this year Kronstadt built a new drone factory north of Moscow.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 
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delta115

delta115

Junior Member
Registered Member
TongHua said:
Pretty sure Iran is donating hundreds of drones to Russia for free. There goes that old saying. An enemy of my enemy is my friend. Ukraine is where Iran can hurt Americans real bad economically. Also, for decades Russia has been trying to cozy up to the west only to get burned. Iran has finally found a powerful ally against the US.
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No confirmation that deal is happen. Even if it true, Iran are not doing that for "free". There are rumor about their interest in SU-35 that were supposed to be delivered to Egypt but the deal is about to be canceled due to US intervention. This might be part of the deal.
 
tankphobia

tankphobia

Senior Member
Registered Member
TongHua said:
Pretty sure Iran is donating hundreds of drones to Russia for free. There goes that old saying. An enemy of my enemy is my friend. Ukraine is where Iran can hurt Americans real bad economically. Also, for decades Russia has been trying to cozy up to the west only to get burned. Iran has finally found a powerful ally against the US.
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No? If anything America is profiting majorly from higher resource prices during this war. We have had 0 indications that Iran is providing anything "for free", let alone to the tunes of hundreds of drones.

Like the US can afford to burn billions a month in the ME, idk where you get the idea that they are at all strained by their current level of support.
 
P

Pmichael

Junior Member
Staedler said:
I think in terms of near-peer combat so my point of view on the subject is quite simple. When the rubber meets the road, what people think their structure should be equivalent to matters very little vs what it is actually equivalent to. There is no material advantage large enough between near peers for 700 men and equipment to be equivalent to 4000 men and equipment.

Criticizing the BTG concept and execution is fine and all, but I disagree with attempts to draw 1v1 duels of 1 BTG vs 1 ABCT and acting like the other 3300 men and equipment that could potentially be in the army mysteriously vanished into the air. That the Russians ran their units understrength is not a limitation of a BTG but of Russia itself yet the graphic implies otherwise.



If army A, totaling 100k men, organizes itself into groups of 1000 and fights army B which also totals 100k men but splits itself into groups of 5000. Do we say Army A is therefore flawed because Group 1000 is weaker than Group 5000? There may be disadvantages and inefficiencies from the grouping sizes but singular Group A vs B head-to-head comparisons are quite pointless.

The real problem only comes when Army A decides Group 1000 is good enough to fight Group 5000 and downsizes itself to only 20k men. Is problem now that the concept of Group 1000 is flawed or is it a "Army A thinks their soldiers are ubermensch" problem?

For an example from real history, the NRA's division-equivalent only had ~5k men. The Japanese division was about 20k men. If you compare the NRA division of 5k against the Japanese 20k, the NRA would of course far poorly. But in reality, the NRA just used more "divisions" to match the Japanese division. What issues they had were not a result of their 5k men division structure, but generalized across the entire NRA. They would have had the same issues regardless of what structure they used.

So I think criticizing the BTG concept as being weaker than an ABCT is a fundamental attribution error. Criticism should be towards the root of the problem.
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It's not being fair but what's the reality of Russian force composition. The BTG concept has its origin in the Chechen War when Russia lacked the manpower and equipment to field full brigades and and divisions, so the BTG is basically the smallest possible unit to carry out maneuver warfare independently. Two BTGs form one Russian brigade, which is still smaller than a NATO brigade, if Russia could put full units in full brigade strength BTGs wouldn't exist in the first place, they are a result of operational requirements and lack of manpower and equipment.

Also your N.R.A. numbers are quite off. On an organization level there wasn't much difference between N.R.A. divisions and Imperial Japanese divisions.
 
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