Ukrainian War Developments

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solarz

solarz

Brigadier
Getting really tired of all the armchair generals criticizing Russia for their "poor performance".

Shit, poor compared to whom? NATO? Did everyone forget that Russia has an economy the size of Canada? Their military punches way above the weight of their economy, and in order to do that, they have to pay the price in lives, especially when they're trying to minimize civilian casualties.
 
LawLeadsToPeace

LawLeadsToPeace

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Temstar said:
One of the important point this ex-PLA commander is trying to make is that BTG arises out of taking a given brigade and then take all the "spear points" of the brigade (comprising about half of the strength of the brigade) and focusing them into a fist. Being made up of all the hard hitting stuff of a brigade this fist is really powerful, but it's all spear point and no spear shaft. Compared to a PLAFG combined arms brigade the BTG has a lot fewer people and very high ratio of equipment to bodies. This means the BTG is entirely logistically depending on the remaining "soft" half of the brigade that follows them. He said if he was in command of the Ukrainian he would entirely let the BTG charge past and let them wonder around in Ukraine's strategic depth while he focuses on attacking the remaining soft half of the brigade. Ukraine is kind of doing this with all their ambushes, but these are all small in scale and can't bring any decisive results. By he's estimate Ukraine should have by this stage eliminated 2-3 BTGs and so far they got a big fat zero.

A PLAFG combined arms brigade has a lot more warm bodies and is self-contained logistic wise. In a head to head a BTG would not be able to fight off a heavy combined arms brigade due to the sheer numerical superiority and weight of all that armour and firepower. Conversely a BTG would not be fast enough to catch the very fast medium and light combined arms brigades and those would be perfect for dodging around the fist that is BTG and loop around and hit the rear half of the brigade.

He says when he's troops and Russian armed forces train together at Zhurihe every hour they have to stop and wait for Russians to catch up to them. And when they do all he see is equipment leaking water, leaking oil and overheating.
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So in short a Russian BTG cannot sustain its momentum due to a lack of manpower and its insufficient logistical capabilities?
 
sferrin

sferrin

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Overbom said:
Whatever the West can use, Russia will use 10 times more if it is threatened. And if the West gets the courage to enter a nuclear exchange war with Russia then Putin will happily oblige it.

After all, who has the most to lose from a nuclear exchange? The combined almost $40 trillion Western economies or the $1.5 trillion Russian economy?

Similarly, who will lose the most, the West's 800 million population or Russia's 150 million people?

In both cases, the biggest loser is the West not Russia. As such, we can conclude that from power dynamics, Russia's nuclear threat is much more of a deterrence against the West than the other way around
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Here we go again. :rolleyes: Nobody is nukeing anybody. Jesus.
 
A

Abominable

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Lethe said:
If Russia succeeds in consolidating control of Ukraine -- and that is a very big 'if' -- then, given the de facto state of economic war that has been declared on Russia, I think it is entirely plausible that Moscow will at least consider revising the dispensation of the Baltic states. Not only would doing so serve more or less the same purpose as the invasion of Ukraine, but if successful it would break the back of NATO by revealing it as a paper tiger. However, under these circumstances, I believe that Washington would use tactical nuclear weapons. This is why the west cannot allow Russia to succeed in consolidating control of Ukraine in the first place.
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Pretty much my take on it.

I doubt America would use tactical nukes in a conflict though. It's never been part of NATO doctrine and they don't have many of them (if any at all). A war with tactical nukes would heavily favour Russia. The Soviets obsessed over them and Russia has thousands of them.
Lethe said:
There are now multiple generations of western leaders who have no experience in dealing with complex strategic realities in which interests must be clearly assessed in light of power considerations. These leaders live in a world of rhetorical moralism and foreign policy decisions undertaken without regard for their consequences -- because there usually aren't any.
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Pretty much. I think 9/11 is to blame, American enemies stopped become countries and started becoming terrorists. That may work with countries like Iraq or Syria, but it won't work on anyone bigger.

The one good thing I think Trump did in his presidency was to try and make a deal with North Korea. He got hated by both Republicans and Democrats for it, but what's the alternative, war?
 
M

muddie

Junior Member
sferrin said:
Here we go again. :rolleyes: Nobody is nukeing anybody. Jesus.
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Really depends how far U.S./NATO wants to escalate.

People said the same thing just a few months ago that Russia's build up was just a scare tactic and there won't be a war in Ukraine, and here we are.

If the U.S./NATO continues to supply weaponry to Ukraine, especially going beyond small arms to fighter jets, S-300s, and Russia is taking very significant losses a few months down the road to a point where its no longer able to defeat Ukraine, IMO Russia will (and should) retaliate with tactical nukes.

IMO the current Russian leadership has the balls to use nukes and Putin's threats aren't empty. Its going to get real interesting if Russia retaliates with a tactical nuke because what is the U.S./NATO going to do then? They have no more sanctions to use. Are they going to nuke Russia back to escalate further? Is the U.S. and EU willing to trade cities with Russia?
 
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