Ukrainian War Developments

SampanViking said:

It is worth noting that the Ukrainian army is NATO trained, is using specialist NATO weapons and is getting a lot of INTEL and no doubt EW support from NATO.
Effectively, Russia is fighting a NATO army, it is doing so with one are tied behind its back and despite all the problems and issues and clustermuffs, it is still winning.

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As far as I know, Ukraine's army does not operate strictly according to NATO doctrine.
It originally operated according to inherited Soviet doctrine.
Now does it operate according to a fusion of Soviet and NATO doctrine?

Some Ukrainian soldiers (what proportion?) have received some training by NATO, but it seems misleading
to imply that all Ukrainian soldiers have been completely trained to operate as a NATO army.

The Afghan Mujahideen received a lot of arms (and a bit of training) from the USA as well from China (even earlier).
That did not make the Afghans into US Army or PLA soldiers.

SampanViking said:

It is worth noting that the Ukrainian army is NATO trained, is using specialist NATO weapons and is getting a lot of INTEL and no doubt EW support from NATO.
Effectively, Russia is fighting a NATO army, it is doing so with one are tied behind its back and despite all the problems and issues and clustermuffs, it is still winning.

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Yup. Ukraine has a standing army of 226,000 men with about 400,000 in reserve that are properly trained. Not to mention millions that want to fight. This was not going to be an easy fight for Russia. The Ukrainians have been training for 8 years for a possible war with Russia-and they have gotten NATO weapons. So this war is going be slow and grinding. This Ukraine military isn’t the same as it was in 2014. Plus they the defenders have the advantage as they can sit back and fire.

The first week was a fiasco. It was a combination of horrible logistics, bad intel and holding back their military. However Russia adapted and changed tactics and we are seeing that. Time is on Russia’s side. Ukraine can’t do nothing about the airstrikes, missile bombardments, and artillery barrage. So in the long run they will collapse.

Same thing with Syria. During the Aleppo offensives it was a slow slugfest and many thought that Russia’s mission in Syria would be a failure. But slowly but surely the rebels got crushed. The tactic is surround the urban areas, create humanitarian corridors to let civilians leave, once they leave level the enemy defensive positions with around the clock bombardment then send ground troops in to finish the job. It’s ugly, slow but it works.

The majority concentration of forces is in the east and south. From the way things are going this war will be over by the summer. Ukraine got massive cities in the east and Ukraine’s best fighters are in the east. Major cities next to be taken is Sverdoneskt, Dnirpo, Sumy,Khariv, chernivtsi, Odessa etc. It’s early and Russia is winning. It’s going to be a slow slugfest. The war is now a war of attrition. At a certain point Ukraine’s eastern forces will collapse. They will run out of ammo, food and water.

Bill Blazo said:

Yeah these are the kinds of rosy expectations that would lead to disaster for the Chinese. Regardless of what will actually happen, the upfront expectation has to be that the Taiwanese will turn every square inch into Stalingrad. China cannot make the same mistake Russia just did with Ukraine. It has to treat its opponent seriously and expect a tough fight. That means preparing for a tough fight in every conceivable way too. It means launching an overwhelming first hit against the Taiwanese military on day one, something Russia did not do against Ukraine under the idiotic pretense that this was all going to be easy. It means concentrating the bulk of the air force for massive, coordinated, large-scale operations, something the Russians did not do. You get the point. Whatever the Russians did in Ukraine, do the opposite of that.

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If China wins the war through largely destroying Taiwan, it will make it much harder to win the peace.
Did the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) strive to turn Saigon into another Stalingrad before it surrendered to Hanoi?

SampanViking said:

It is worth noting that the Ukrainian army is NATO trained, is using specialist NATO weapons and is getting a lot of INTEL and no doubt EW support from NATO.
Effectively, Russia is fighting a NATO army, it is doing so with one are tied behind its back and despite all the problems and issues and clustermuffs, it is still winning.

Click to expand...

Yes and no.

Yes in that they are getting infantry training and weapons from NATO, but the fundamental essence of a true NATO army is its air power.

NATO ground forces are puny and under-armed because their air forces are supposed to do all the heavy lifting in a war. With ground forces only needing to do mop up for the most part.

Ukraine does not have a NATO standard Air Force, and more importantly, cannot count on the might of the USAF as all NATO militaries can and do to underpin their combat capabilities.

As such, while Ukraine might be NATO trained and equipped with infantry weapons, they are nothing like a true NATO military and their performance cannot be used to accurately or reliability model how a NATO military force would fair against the Russians.

plawolf said:

Yes and no.

Yes in that they are getting infantry training and weapons from NATO, but the fundamental essence of a true NATO army is its air power.

NATO ground forces are puny and under-armed because their air forces are supposed to do all the heavy lifting in a war. With ground forces only needing to do mop up for the most part.

Ukraine does not have a NATO standard Air Force, and more importantly, cannot count on the might of the USAF as all NATO militaries can and do to underpin their combat capabilities.

As such, while Ukraine might be NATO trained and equipped with infantry weapons, they are nothing like a true NATO military and their performance cannot be used to accurately or reliability model how a NATO military force would fair against the Russians.

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Which is a very fair point. Still, useful experience for them no doubt.

james smith esq said:

I’ll offer mine; as long as this ‘Muricun Anglo shithole goes down, I’ll, happily, go down with it!!!

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Says the guy depending on the 'Murican Anglo shithole" for his safety. Stay classy!

FADH1791 said:

Yup. Ukraine has a standing army of 226,000 men with about 400,000 in reserve that are properly trained. Not to mention millions that want to fight. This was not going to be an easy fight for Russia. The Ukrainians have been training for 8 years for a possible war with Russia-and they have gotten NATO weapons. So this war is going be slow and grinding. This Ukraine military isn’t the same as it was in 2014. Plus they the defenders have the advantage as they can sit back and fire.

The first week was a fiasco. It was a combination of horrible logistics, bad intel and holding back their military. However Russia adapted and changed tactics and we are seeing that. Time is on Russia’s side. Ukraine can’t do nothing about the airstrikes, missile bombardments, and artillery barrage. So in the long run they will collapse.

Same thing with Syria. During the Aleppo offensives it was a slow slugfest and many thought that Russia’s mission in Syria would be a failure. But slowly but surely the rebels got crushed. The tactic is surround the urban areas, create humanitarian corridors to let civilians leave, once they leave level the enemy defensive positions with around the clock bombardment then send ground troops in to finish the job. It’s ugly, slow but it works.

The majority concentration of forces is in the east and south. From the way things are going this war will be over by the summer. Ukraine got massive cities in the east and Ukraine’s best fighters are in the east. Major cities next to be taken is Sverdoneskt, Dnirpo, Sumy,Khariv, chernivtsi, Odessa etc. It’s early and Russia is winning. It’s going to be a slow slugfest. The war is now a war of attrition. At a certain point Ukraine’s eastern forces will collapse. They will run out of ammo, food and water.

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It was hubristic for the Russians to believe, if they ever truly believed it, that Ukraine would be an easy fight. The assumption that they should have made, which was actually very evident, is that because Ukraine was well equipped with anti armour weapons, MANPADS, artillery, and drones, that the Ukrainians would be determined to fight, and they'd at least be the equal of the Chechen Rebels of the 90s and 2000s, but even better equipped, even though Russia has much greater fire power and would be able to exert aerial domination.

As such, the Russians should have launched themselves into battle very cautiously, combining probing attacks, with slow advanced of armour, fanning out of infantry to protect armour from ambushes but also more likely prevent ambushes, while never making advances of large combat formations for ahead of logistics, while delivering heavy aerial and artillery attacks on any moderately sized concentrations of Ukrainian forces as they advanced...

plawolf said:

Yes and no.

Yes in that they are getting infantry training and weapons from NATO, but the fundamental essence of a true NATO army is its air power.

NATO ground forces are puny and under-armed because their air forces are supposed to do all the heavy lifting in a war. With ground forces only needing to do mop up for the most part.

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Did you watch Desert Storm? To paraphrase on Iraqi tank battalion/brigade/whatever commander, "after 45 days of bombing I still had 55 of 58 tanks. After 45 minutes of fighting ground forces I had none."

enroger said:

It's not a good tittle to become the most experience in urban warfare.... urban warfare will always involve heavy casualty no matter how experience you are. I think armies need to train for but also avoid it at all cost.

To be honest if I'm in command, I'd rather commit war crime and thermobaric the whole lot than having my troops go door to door CQB

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"To be honest if I'm in command, I'd rather commit war crime and thermobaric the whole lot ..."

Then I am glad that you are not in command.

In 1984, Sikh nationalists defiantly occupied the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India.
Rather than bombard the Golden Temple into oblivion, Indira Gandhi ordered the Indian Army to storm it.
There ensued a brutal close-quarter battle. The Indian soldiers took heavy losses and evidently committed many war crimes.

" attributed high civilian casualties to the Indian Government's attempt at a full frontal
assault on the militants, diverging from the recommendations provided by the ."

"On 4 June no warning was provided to the pilgrims to evacuate and the pilgrims were deterred of leaving as the Indian army
would arrest anyone who left the temple complex. ... The eyewitness testimony of survivors of the army's assault on the temple
complex were consistent with stating that they were unaware of the start of the attack by the army until it took place without
notice on the morning of 4 June. On 6 June the Indian military detained surviving pilgrims on the grounds that they
were affiliated with the militants and subjected them to interrogations, beatings and executions."

"The military action in the temple complex was criticized by Sikhs worldwide, who interpreted it as an assault on the Sikh religion.
Many Sikh soldiers in the army their units, several Sikhs resigned from civil administrative office and returned awards
received from the . Five months after the operation, on 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi was in an act
of revenge by her two Sikh bodyguards, and . Public outcry over Gandhi's death led to a state
organized pogrom leading to the killing of more than 3,000-17,000 Sikhs across India, in the ensuing ."
--Wikipedia

In the Second World War, Germany had the deadliest chemical weapon--Tabun, the first 'nerve gas'--in the world.

"Tabun was made on an industrial scale by Germany during World War II, based on a process developed by .
In the chemical agent factory in , codenamed "Hochwerk", at least 12,000 metric tons of this agent
were manufactured between 1942 and 1945."

But, even in extremis, Hitler never ordered the employment of chemical weapons.
Hitler committed suicide without ever using Tabun against the RKKA.

sferrin said:

Says the guy depending on the 'Murican Anglo shithole" for his safety. Stay classy!

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Sferrin wrote to James Smith:

Not everyone in the USA would prefer to live there if they had the means to choose otherwise.
The USA makes it harder (charging more money) than every other country to renounce one's citizenship.