Ukrainian War Developments

james smith esq said:

I think that this force could’ve been effective, had the planners conceptualized and provided a coherent, focused, and achievable strategy.

This medieval, taking of cities was beyond stupid, and the multi-axes attacks on who-knows-what will perplex military historians ‘til infinity.

Simply advancing from Crimea to the eastern and western borders and somewhat north along the Dnieper would’ve been strategically logical, quickly achievable and easily defensible. It would’ve established a hundreds kilometer long front line that would require any responding forces to expose themselves to Russian air interdiction and artillery and MLRS fire while drawing them away from the both the capital and the geographic center of the country.

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enroger said:

The Russians can learn from their mistakes if anything. Several pages back there is an article written by ex-PLA seems convincing for me. Their actual BTGs is actually decent, the problem is Russia can't afford many of them, and making everyone adhoc BTGs is clearly not working. BTGs being heavy on big guns light on logistics proves to be inadequate for long distance maneuvering.... no doubt they're gonna have to work on that.

And lets not kid ourselves, Russia is not gonna collapse from a little military misadventure, they practically do this every decade

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"Russia headed to strategic defeat in Ukraine"​

Weaasel said:

They did that already, at relatively little cost. But doing so did necessitate that they also open a front in the North, at least to prevent their moves in the South from being countered by reinforcements coming from the North.

Also, inevitably there are a number of cities in the Donbass Region, such as Mariupol and the Severodonetsk Metropolitan Area that they must take.

The big mistake that the Russians made in the first week of the war, especially in the North, was undertaking cavalier charges of armoured vehicles with infantry, without any extensive probing, without recon extensive with fire, and well ahead of logistics, and not combining the arms of artillery and close air support with such advances. That was hubristic recklessness due to completely underestimating the capabilities of the Ukrainian forces, instead of adopting the mentality of caution and overestimating them. The Russians knew very well that the Ukrainians possessed effective anti armour weapons, drones, and decent surface to air defences against low flying aircraft, yet they undertook such a reckless charge, not applying the cautious and highly tried and tested and known to work methodology of the 2nd Chechen War.

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tank3487 said:

I think most analytics just underestimate how hard it is to break 40 millions country with at least 200k thousands troops(and twice bigger by the size than Vietnam for example). Ukraine was in top 10 of arms exporters for a long time, had received massive supply of arms from NATO countries for 7 years. Has extensive Soviet era air defense network(and not export bs, but actual Soviet for inner consumption). It is probably one of the most militarized countries in Europe with exception to Russia and Turkey.

That Russia manage already to get hold on whole South and quite close to restoring full DNR/LNR territory without inflicting massive civilian losses and leveling down population centers(only Mariupol had seen extensive damage, and it is not even close to anything like Chechnya, Iraq or Syria) are quite massive achievement. And it is really unlikely that Russia has plans to actually capture and hold after war anything else, because it is pointless economically. And all this is done by 200k troops from standing army without even using partial mobilization even of volunteers.

IMHO after taking DNR/LNR territories and South, Russia would just blackmail Kiev into accepting negotiations terms by threat of capital. With East part of Ukrainian forces collapsing, it would be hard to say NO.

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tank3487 said:

I think most analytics just underestimate how hard it is to break 40 millions country with at least 200k thousands troops(and twice bigger by the size than Vietnam for example). Ukraine was in top 10 of arms exporters for a long time, had received massive supply of arms from NATO countries for 7 years. Has extensive Soviet era air defense network(and not export bs, but actual Soviet for inner consumption). It is probably one of the most militarized countries in Europe with exception to Russia and Turkey.

That Russia manage already to get hold on whole South and quite close to restoring full DNR/LNR territory without inflicting massive civilian losses and leveling down population centers(only Mariupol had seen extensive damage, and it is not even close to anything like Chechnya, Iraq or Syria) are quite massive achievement. And it is really unlikely that Russia has plans to actually capture and hold after war anything else, because it is pointless economically. And all this is done by 200k troops from standing army without even using partial mobilization even of volunteers.

IMHO after taking DNR/LNR territories and South, Russia would just blackmail Kiev into accepting negotiations terms by threat of capital. With East part of Ukrainian forces collapsing, it would be hard to say NO.

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james smith esq said:

The only analysts whose underestimation matters are the ones that planned this invasion! All others‘ are post-phenomenal, i. e., after-the-fact!

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james smith esq said:

The big mistake the Russians made was not having a coherent strategy!

If anyone looks at that map, a realistic one, and tells me that the Russian strategy is clear, I’ll call them a liar or a brilliant interpreter of abstract art. Was the plan to take Ukraine up to the Dnieper? LOL!!!

The didn’t have to take any cities, just control access. All they had to do was to neutralize military capabilities. If Ukrainian military units retreated into the cities, then let them stay there; mortars and artillery emplacements in urban spaces can be located and neutralized by CAS strikes.

As I said, the “reinforcements coming from the North” would have been easy pickin’s for any competent Air Force and artillery units. Requiring one’s adversary to move where and when you want them to is actually strategy 101.

All the “mistakes” you mentioned in tactics were subordinate to the fundamental mistake in strategy. The charges, no matter how badly executed, were to nowhere, in the first place!

But, go ahead and minimize Russian incompetence; that’s obviously their preferred MO. Better yet, go ‘head and volunteer! Everybody, here, is makin’ fun of the fools volunteering to fight for Ukraine; but ain’t nobody foolish enough to even consider volunteering to join Russia!

Slava Stupid!

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james smith esq said:

So, we’re having a virus pandemic (the US will surpass 1,000,000 deaths within the week), a war between the two largest countries in Europe, and now, as a result of both, it seems that massive starvation is a possibility. What next, locusts, or an asteroid strike?

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james smith esq said:

All the “mistakes” you mentioned in tactics were subordinate to the fundamental mistake in strategy. The charges, no matter how badly executed, were to nowhere, in the first place!

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