I admire the Ukrainian people for their courage and tenacity to defend their country. And I also admire President Vlodomir Zelensky for his intelligence and steadfastness. I think he is the right man at the right time. The Russians made the mistake of thinking a war against them would be an easy and quick victory for themselves and Putin.

You knew this was coming.

Rut ro Raggy, looks like Boris and Natasha are having their butts kicked by a very smart squirrel. 

https://thehill.com/policy/international...cial-says/

British intelligence have confirmed that that roughly 20% of the 1100 Russian combat deaths claimed by Russia in the last three weeks are officers (captains or above).

Losing ten officers a day is not sustainable.

Boru

(April 17, 2022 at 3:47 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: British intelligence have confirmed that that roughly 20% of the 1100 Russian combat deaths claimed by Russia in the last three weeks are officers (captains or above).

Losing ten officers a day is not sustainable.

Boru

That actually is not that bad.     There is usually about 1 officer for every 5-10 men.    So there is probably circa 20,000 officers in the forces Russia deployed to attack Ukraine.   Also, Russia has about 25 higher military schools with 5 year programs to train men to be commissioned officers.    It is probably reasonable to expect in the short term, Russian officer pipeline can make up that loss. 

In addition, the impact of losing officers for the Russian army is somewhat different from those on NATO armies.    In general, Russian army blur the roles of commissioned officers and NCO that would be separate in western armies.  Russian officers up to captain perform roles that would have been taken by NCOs in western military, and they do it will shorter service under their belts, less experience, and considerably greater social separation from men under their commands.      This system has not proven itself in Ukraine.    Loss of these officers would actually have less immediate impact on the army overall than loss of their equivalent NCOs in western armies because these junior officers are mostly there to get their tickets punched and their loss do not actually embody a comparable loss of experience, practical expertise and institutional knowledge as losses of NCOs in the same roles in western armies.
   
Also, when Russian army improvise, the initiative tends to come from the top.   Russian staff training does not put so much emphasis preparing relatively junior officers to understand technically the roles of senior officers and be able to step in if chain of command breaks down or if existing doctrine has to be revised on the spot.  Instead each officer rank is only trained to do his job and then maybe the job one rank above him.    So to make the improvisation work, senior officers have to be on the spot with much lower ranking officers to make it work.    So Russians colonels and generals can be expected to be near the front and be under fire much more than would be the case with western forces, especially when things are not going according to plan.

(April 17, 2022 at 3:47 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: British intelligence have confirmed that that roughly 20% of the 1100 Russian combat deaths claimed by Russia in the last three weeks are officers (captains or above).

Losing ten officers a day is not sustainable.

Boru

Losing 10 Russian officers a day IS.



Signed

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

PS - think " battlefield promotion"..... If the Ruskies do their part - we' ll do ours!

I swear to the god I don't believe in. Moscow could be on fire with Ukraine soldiers marching through Red Square in victory and Putin in Ukrainian prison and Anomalocaris would argue it's actually a good thing for Russia or part of some elaborate Russian Strategy that will totally win the war ....

Meanwhile, another Russian Lt Gen got killed on Friday.

As for having officers do the work of NCOs while still maintaining the separation of hierarchy, I dunno, that doesn't seem to be working well. It seems to me that with good training, instilling initiative into the NCO corps is both more cost-effective and combat-capable.

No no he will be rebuilt as The Bionic Russian complete with eye lasers and he will defeat Ukraine single handily or he faked his death as a clever ploy that will pay off in three weeks. Everything is fine. Russia so isn't losing the war 

In seriousness, losing that much leadership is probably going to harm the upcoming renewed offensive, because those generals won't be around to specifically pint out what part of which plan went wrong, meaning the Russians will have to get forensic about their analysis without being in control of the battlefield and able to access the evidence.

On the other hand, it gives the newer leaders a chance to do better, if their troops aren't worn out after all the combat and then redeployment.