Ukrainian War Developments

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Weaasel

Senior Member
Registered Member
I don't care who they are: Ukrainians, Russians, Americans, God's own angels. If they have committed war crimes, then should be held accountable and tried for war crimes.
They won't be.
It is far more than lack of air support, The russian army is defective from top down. At the top level it is fundamentally badly organized to maximize its own fighting power, and despite that ir still not well equipped to meet the needs of the organization it actually has.

the battalion tactical group is too small to protect its own flank and rear while operating as a independent tactical unit. a BTG is effectively a reinforced company sized unit when operating more 10 miles from its depot and runs out is any offensive or even defensive capability more than 20-30 miles from supply depot. Communication abs collaboration protocol is either not in place or remains unimplemented to affect efficient collaboration between multiple BTGs. So right off the bat, if the US army were to conduct a similar effect to take seize Kyiv by a coup de main using similar size if overall force, it’s much larger brigade combat team can go much deeper and faster before its flanks becomes vulnerable. Going much faster abs deeper immediately means the enemy has less opportunity to organize any threat to its flank.

Russian army also does not preserve a sufficient corp of long serving NCOs who preserves the field craft and mundane skill of effective operation at the front line level. So squads and platoons at the front are not led by men with 8, 10, even 20 years of experience leading small units, but instead by newly minted lieutenants just graduated from military academies. In any western army, at least some of the frontline units would still be led by NCOs who had seen combat in the second iraq war, Almost all of them would have several years of experience from field maneuvers. In the russian army, a good deal of the front line units would be led by men barely out of school leading men at the end of their 1 year conscription period.

In the end, Russians can be tenacious and stoic fighting men. But one should never overemphasize that as a great comparative advantage because it is too easy to underestimate the latent stoicism and tenacities of fighting men in better organized armies that does not require sending men through the meat grinder to achieve its goals.

If the Americans had rushed towards Kiev in the same way the Russians had done, well ahead of supplies, without adequate air support, not protecting their rear and flanks, they would have also suffered high casualties since the Ukrainians were already prepared for their ambushes.
 

Overbom

Brigadier
Registered Member
It is far more than lack of air support, The russian army is defective from top down. At the top level it is fundamentally badly organized to maximize its own fighting power, and despite that ir still not well equipped to meet the needs of the organization it actually has.

the battalion tactical group is too small to protect its own flank and rear while operating as a independent tactical unit. a BTG is effectively a reinforced company sized unit when operating more 10 miles from its depot and runs out is any offensive or even defensive capability more than 20-30 miles from supply depot. Communication abs collaboration protocol is either not in place or remains unimplemented to affect efficient collaboration between multiple BTGs. So right off the bat, if the US army were to conduct a similar effect to take seize Kyiv by a coup de main using similar size if overall force, it’s much larger brigade combat team can go much deeper and faster before its flanks becomes vulnerable. Going much faster abs deeper immediately means the enemy has less opportunity to organize any threat to its flank.

Russian army also does not preserve a sufficient corp of long serving NCOs who preserves the field craft and mundane skill of effective operation at the front line level. So squads and platoons at the front are not led by men with 8, 10, even 20 years of experience leading small units, but instead by newly minted lieutenants just graduated from military academies. In any western army, at least some of the frontline units would still be led by NCOs who had seen combat in the second iraq war, Almost all of them would have several years of experience from field maneuvers. In the russian army, a good deal of the front line units would be led by men barely out of school leading men at the end of their 1 year conscription period.

In the end, Russians can be tenacious and stoic fighting men. But one should never overemphasize that as a great comparative advantage because it is too easy to underestimate the latent stoicism and tenacities of fighting men in better organized armies that does not require sending men through the meat grinder to achieve its goals.
Good reminder about the NCO system. I had totally forgotten that Russia doesn't use NCOs. That's plain stupidity.

You want experienced people to lead you smaller formations to battle. You can't just depend on officers for every little thing that needs to be done, much better to have experienced NCOs with them. These are the sort of people who are going to know everything in their unit inside-out
 

Pmichael

Junior Member
They won't be.


If the Americans had rushed towards Kiev in the same way the Russians had done, well ahead of supplies, without adequate air support, not protecting their rear and flanks, they would have also suffered high casualties since the Ukrainians were already prepared for their ambushes.

Good that they aren't doing those things then I guess. They know how to supply fast moving frontlines like no one else.
 

gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
What make you think they need to recover these? These are junks! And the Russians has junk yards after junk yards of these old legacy USSR era equipment in storage, that their active force can NEVER hope to fully field or put to active services. It's not like the Russia are losing T-90MS or T14. They are losing cheaply upgraded T-72's and T-80's, and a few early version T90s. They are more than enough T72s and T-80s waiting in their junk yard storage waiting to be cheaply upgraded to fill these losses.
Well I would not put things quite like that. A lot of the losses are T-72B3 and later variants. Some T-80BVM. Even some early T-90s.
The Russians did not send all the leading edge hardware like T-90M but they sent from the bulk of their main troops and even some units which should be considered among their best units. At least on paper.
A fully upgraded T-72B3 of 2016 variant probably cost as much to upgrade as an early model T-72B cost to build. Still cheaper than a T-90 overall but not cheap by their standards.

One thing the Syrians figured out in their conflict was that in what is effectively counter insurgency warfare against dismounted troops, even if those troops do have a lot of ATGMs, sending the latest and greatest hardware wouldn't necessarily help. You are better off sending equipment that is dirt cheap to purchase and maintain add simple armor like cage armor. I think once Ukraine's rather large armored units are destroyed we will see the Russians use more and more older T-72Bs in service in the conflict with cage armor in it. And the Russians have a shitload of those T-72Bs to the point they don't know where to store them.

It is far more than lack of air support, The russian army is defective from top down. At the top level it is fundamentally badly organized to maximize its own fighting power, and despite that ir still not well equipped to meet the needs of the organization it actually has.
I would not say there is a lack of air support. I think the major problem is an uneven upgrade of Russian battlefield communications.
They are still in the process of upgrading those and lack of uniformity in kit means you probably have some limitations in communications even in the same service let alone among different services.

Russian army also does not preserve a sufficient corp of long serving NCOs who preserves the field craft and mundane skill of effective operation at the front line level. So squads and platoons at the front are not led by men with 8, 10, even 20 years of experience leading small units, but instead by newly minted lieutenants just graduated from military academies. In any western army, at least some of the frontline units would still be led by NCOs who had seen combat in the second iraq war, Almost all of them would have several years of experience from field maneuvers. In the russian army, a good deal of the front line units would be led by men barely out of school leading men at the end of their 1 year conscription period.
You seem to be assuming the Russians have not been in conflicts recently. They have been in Syria since 2015. They have few troops there in Syria but they keep rotating them all the time. They also had a brief war with Georgia in 2008. The current Russian army was changed after those conflicts and will likely change with this conflict as well.
 

Jingle Bells

Junior Member
Registered Member
Well I would not put things quite like that. A lot of the losses are T-72B3 and later variants. Some T-80BVM. Even some early T-90s.
The Russians did not send all the leading edge hardware like T-90M but they sent from the bulk of their main troops and even some units which should be considered among their best units. At least on paper.
A fully upgraded T-72B3 of 2016 variant probably cost as much to upgrade as an early model T-72B cost to build. Still cheaper than a T-90 overall but not cheap by their standards.

One thing the Syrians figured out in their conflict was that in what is effectively counter insurgency warfare against dismounted troops, even if those troops do have a lot of ATGMs, sending the latest and greatest hardware wouldn't necessarily help. You are better off sending equipment that is dirt cheap to purchase and maintain add simple armor like cage armor. I think once Ukraine's rather large armored units are destroyed we will see the Russians use more and more older T-72Bs in service in the conflict with cage armor in it. And the Russians have a shitload of those T-72Bs to the point they don't know where to store them.


I would not say there is a lack of air support. I think the major problem is an uneven upgrade of Russian battlefield communications.
They are still in the process of upgrading those and lack of uniformity in kit means you probably have some limitations in communications even in the same service let alone among different services.


You seem to be assuming the Russians have not been in conflicts recently. They have been in Syria since 2015. They have few troops there in Syria but they keep rotating them all the time. They also had a brief war with Georgia in 2008. The current Russian army was changed after those conflicts and will likely change with this conflict as well.
I understand that.
But it is very clear that a lot of people here are cheering and getting a hard-on over two nations killing each other and with Ukrainian clearly suffering much much more than Russian could ever, looking at the trend here. And they are gleefully cheering to get more Ukrainians to die, more Ukrainian cities turned to rubbles, more Ukrainian industry disrupted and destroyed, just so that it can cost the Russians a couple of hundred more cheap Russian tanks!

They are celebrating the massive bleeding of Ukraine, just so that they can brag about how "Russia sucks", which somehow implies that they are superior (I don't know how that works, I can speculate how @asif iqbal was thinking: he thinks "Russia sucks" equals to "India sucks", and somehow that's good for Pakistan. That make sense, and it's his beloved motherland Pakistan he's actually cheering for, so it's understandable). However, for many others, their attitude as cheering bystanders really pisses me off!

This is like the Roman bystanders getting blood thirsty and excited seeing a gladiator game in the colosseum. It's disgusting! If you are blood thirsty, go quench your thirst with your own life and blood, don't feed on the death of others with your eyes from a safe distance.

War is horrible, let's get it straight. Again, I wish this to be over as soon as possible, regardless of the outcome of who wins and who loses. It doesn't matter because Ukrainian people/civilians is already the loser here. Let get this over with, and start helping them rebuild their home.
 
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asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
Been already pointed out to you multiple times.

But posts like this which i have no doubt you have read, put it quite bluntly.

Gelgoog and few others also had excellent post on Oryx and his inability to identify stuff correctly.

yes 1% error is still good by Oryx
 

Abominable

Major
Registered Member
Ukrainians destroyed a Russian truck that was hauling off washing machines from a Ukrainian village. The international court is going to have a field day if they ever decide to prosecute against the Russian Federation,
Any "crimes" committed by Russian soldiers will be heard in a Russian military court, the ICC will have nothing to do with it.

Yesterday Russians were tying up civilians and shooting them but that got debunked. Today's war crime is stealing washing machines. I bet tomorrow's war crime will be parking in a disabled space and not returning library books.

I don't know why you Polish people seethe so much about Russia yet are too afraid to fight them. It's the most pathetic thing I've seen.
 

Richard Santos

Captain
Registered Member
Western army cannot support 5 axis invasion. certainly not street fighting in built up areas against hostile population without months of airstrikes. there is no comparable example.
Western army would never consider a 5 axis attack, and would consider such a move wrongheaded.

To understand why the western army would not want to do it while the Russian army would, it has to be understood western and Russian armies generally has a different operational ideology, for the lack of better word.

Soviet operational doctrine since around 1943 has emphasize opening at battle with a style of practical military deception operation called moskirovka. Moskirovka presumes Soviet forces had numerical superiority. It emphasizes setting the stage for the main decisive attack by first simultaneously attacking the enemy along multiple widely separated axis that makes it difficult for the enemy to know where the main attack axis lay, and also makes it difficult for the enemy to be able to position its reserves so as to be able to advantageously meet Russian attacks on several axis at once. This forces the enemy to guess which axis is the main one, and commit their reserves prematurely. Only when it becomes clear where the enemy has committed their reserves, would Russian select the primary axis of attack to avoid enemy reserves. The Russian army would then commit its own reserve to achieve a breakthrough by effectively push against an unlocked door. During the late 1943-1945 period, the Soviets implemented moskirovka with tremendous success against the German army. Despite later soviet portrayals of great soviet heroics in beating the german army, the Soviets didn’t do much out fight the Germans as out deceived and out maneuvered the German army.

Moskirovka remained an integral part of soviet operating doctrine through the Cold War.

It looks very much to me like the Russians in the current Ukrainian war also attempted to implement a version of moskirovka. The problem is the Russians didn’t start the battle with any numerical superiority. So the Ukrainians were able to check each of Russia advances and stop all of them from making decisive breakthroughs. If the Russians had done it right, then Russians would attack with so much force that each of its 5 attack axis could potentially break through into Ukrainian hinterland, and Ukraine must gather the balk of its reserve to meet any single one of them. Once the Ukrainians have committed to meeting a single one, the Russians would then throw in their own reserves into an attack that the Ukraine did not deploy their reserves to meet, and break through. They obviously failed.

Western military thinking says advantage of concentration of force outweigh any advantage in deception resulting from dispersal of forces. So western military strategy would looks for 1, at most 2 main axis of attack, and strive to achieve overwhelming superiority at the single or at most two points of attack. Western concept of military deception does not emphasize actually going through the motions of attacking at different locations similar to soviet Moskirovka. Instead it emphasize deception before the battle through camouflage, false signals, False units etc. Deception during the battle would be achieved by depriving the enemy of situational awareness by destroying their surveillance assets such as reconnaissance planes, and then maneuver the main attacking units in unexpected ways so as to attack along axis the enemy did not come to expect based on pre-attack intelligence.

So you are right, the western army would not attempt to attack in 5 direction at once. They would consider that a serious breach of fundamental military principle of concentration of force.

Russians did attack in 5 directions at once as they have their own idea of fundamental military principles that had worked many times before. But they clearly did not make sure the circumstance that made such maneuver succeed before is duplicated in Ukraine before they tried.
 
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