Russia and Ukraine

[The Architect Of Fate]

exactly what does a division being destroyed mean?   and how much of what is meant is true?   there have been a lot of over the top propaganda claims about casualties inflicted, but my impression is ukrainian exaggeration and falsifications have been more egregious than Russian ones.

Depends on the organization.  It means alot less for a russion division than an american division.  It means that the majority of the trigger pullers or their vehicles are casualties.  So, say you lose your infantry - but still have your armor and supply.  Your unit has been destroyed.  Routed on the battlefield and forced to reorganize with other groups which are likely to have suffered the same loss.  Say you have your infantry, but you've lost 1/2 or more of your armor?  Same thing.  Still have your armor and your infantry, lost supply?  You haven't been routed..yet, but you've been defeated in detail and almost certainly will be..presently.  

Your impression would be wrong.  Incompetence, grift, and an organizational structure designed for small defensive units is the 1-2-3 here.  On the other end, ukraine is using tactics and weapons informed by our misadventures in the middle east these past few decades.  Essentially, there was no way that the russian forces could have had a credible plan in the case that an advance failed (assuming they had one for winning, to begin with), and ukraine is only doing those things which might lead to an advance failing.  It'll be harder going getting the russians out of ukraine than it was to stop them from getting in.  A lesson learned too late for ukraine - but on full display for every other nation of the world, now taking notes.

---

-as an addendum, about lessons learned too late.  I'm sure that someone will remind me that ukraines military was in shambles, itself, a few years back - so what could they have done?  Turns out, russia is so bad at this the locals can manage the defense.  Would have been true then as well.  The audacity of the plan with regards to the little green men caught the world flat footed...but...it seems now like there was a reason that this was russia's first step in the invasion.  It's what they could pull off - realistically.  I've been calling the chickens my little green men for a bit since realizing this.  They're already grazing disputed pastures..have been for years, no one said anything.

I totally agree digging the Russians out is going to be a heck of a lot harder than stopping them was.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's what their units are actually designed for. A western style (read :us) assault was never a credible option for their structure. The operational difference of us and russian units can be read plainly in the numerical disparity. An american unit is comprised in such a way as it can attack, fail..reatreat, and defend, without being "destroyed". Russian units are just big enough to attack and succeed.....or... to offer stiff defense - but there is no margin for failure in either task before destruction. When units organized that way were ordered to attack, and then failed, it compromised their primary ability to defend as well.

Still, it's a vanity project for a dictator who's already reached his "my people don't deserve me" moment...so, there's no amount of reconstituting forces that would be too much for Uncle Vlad.

[Anomalocaris]

exactly what does a division being destroyed mean?   and how much of what is meant is true?   there have been a lot of over the top propaganda claims about casualties inflicted, but my impression is ukrainian exaggeration and falsifications have been more egregious than Russian ones.

Depends on the organization.  It means alot less for a russion division than an american division.  It means that the majority of the trigger pullers or their vehicles are casualties.  So, say you lose your infantry - but still have your armor and supply.  Your unit has been destroyed.  Routed on the battlefield and forced to reorganize with other groups which are likely to have suffered the same loss.  Say you have your infantry, but you've lost 1/2 or more of your armor?  Same thing.  Still have your armor and your infantry, lost supply?  You haven't been routed..yet, but you've been defeated in detail and almost certainly will be..presently.  

Your impression would be wrong.  Incompetence, grift, and an organizational structure designed for small defensive units is the 1-2-3 here.  On the other end, ukraine is using tactics and weapons informed by our misadventures in the middle east these past few decades.  Essentially, there was no way that the russian forces could have had a credible plan in the case that an advance failed (assuming they had one for winning, to begin with), and ukraine is only doing those things which might lead to an advance failing.  It'll be harder going getting the russians out of ukraine than it was to stop them from getting in.  A lesson learned too late for ukraine - but on full display for every other nation of the world, now taking notes.

---

-as an addendum, about lessons learned too late.  I'm sure that someone will remind me that ukraines military was in shambles, itself, a few years back - so what could they have done?  Turns out, russia is so bad at this the locals can manage the defense.  Would have been true then as well.  The audacity of the plan with regards to the little green men caught the world flat footed...but...it seems now like there was a reason that this was russia's first step in the invasion.  It's what they could pull off - realistically.  I've been calling the chickens my little green men for a bit since realizing this.  They're already grazing disputed pastures..have been for years, no one said anything.

i think that might broadly summarize how a notional division might be counted as destroyed in a honest war game, either real war game in war colleges, or war gaming with serious amateurs. 

however I highly doubt that state reflect the current state of the Russian formation in question.    

At best, from the perspective of those making the claim of that division having been destroyed,  units from this division was engaged, causalities were inflicted, and its units are no longer to be identified on the front line.    so the most extravagantly optimistic interpretation possible is placed on this development.    In reality the division’s units are likely simply pulled back for rest or redeployment.

At worst,  this was just a pure bullshit story concocted to leverage the reputation of the unit for a one time propaganda boost.

The style and intensity of the fighting we’ve seen, in my opinion, simply does not support the destruction of division sized mechanized units in a couple of weeks of fighting.

[The Architect Of Fate]

If you don't like it. It can't be true 

[The Grand Nudger]

The style and intensity of the fighting we've seen, limited only to confirmed damage.... absolutely points to the destruction of entire divisions organized as the russians organized them. It just doesn't take much in an attempted advance to destory russian btg's, and russia doesn't have a deep bench of enlisted experience to employ in that effort, or backfill with when it fails. A unit being destroyed, I'm afraid..is not an issue of whatever dive into the sewer of opinion you want to make. I'm sure that most defeated units don't feel that way until the very end - nevertheless, a unit being destroyed has a common (and common sense) standardization.

Defenders advantage.
Whatever you choose to believe is the cause of russias military being one thing on paper and another in reality
Uncharacteristically small unit structures.

This is a recipe for causing mass casualties to russian forces in a contested advance. Now everyone knows it.

[Anomalocaris]

If you don't like it. It can't be true 

you like it, so it must be even truer than true.

[The Architect Of Fate]

It's what their units are actually designed for.  A western style (read :us) assault was never a credible option for their structure.  The operational difference of us and russian units can be read plainly in the numerical disparity.  An american unit is comprised in such a way as it can attack, fail..reatreat, and defend, without being "destroyed".  Russian units are just big enough to attack and succeed.....or... to offer stiff defense - but there is no margin for failure in either task before destruction.  When units organized that way were ordered to attack, and then failed, it compromised their primary ability to defend as well.

Still, it's a vanity project for a dictator who's already reached his "my people don't deserve me" moment...so, there's no amount of reconstituting forces that would be too much for Uncle Vlad.

True

---

you like it, so it must be even truer than true.

Why would enjoy the idea of all those poor men being slaughtered? From a tactical perspective the unit defeat is good but I don't LIKE it because those men are as much victims of Putin's insanity as Ukraine is.

[The Grand Nudger]

The guys on the other side would be your best friend in any other circumstance. You work the same shit job...and you probably like most of the same things. I don't want to detract from the loss that ukrainians suffer, here....but the very first victims of the kremlin are those conscripts they assigned to an impossible task. It's only by victimizing those poor fucks that the victimization of the other is even actualized.

*just to get in front of it. No, I never had that impression - but it's been pointed out to me that my unit and my immediate coworkers were unlikely to be representative of the whole, if my impressions were accurate.

[The Architect Of Fate]

The guys on the other side would be your best friend in any other circumstance.  You work the same shit job...and you probably like most of the same things.  I don't want to detract from the loss that ukrainians suffer, here....but the very first victims of the kremlin are those conscripts they assigned to an impossible task.  It's only by victimizing those poor fucks that the victimization of the other is even actualized.

True 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Might-makes-right isn't a good recipe for international relations.

balance of power, or might, is the only good recipe for international relations.   any excess of power corrupts absolutely as the behavior of the US with invasion of iraq and arbitrary unilateral withdrawal from essentially all treaties governing what it can do to establish nuclear hegemony since 2003 shows.   Preventing the US from being able to further nullify what is really the only check on US ability to go where it wish and does what it wishes is made all the more vital when the US has proven to have become so degenerate since the end of the cold war as to prove capable of putting a trump at the trigger of half of the world’s nuclear arsenals.   The only such check, or balancing power to american power, available in the next 5-10 years is the Russian strategic nuclear deterrence.    So a US controlled NATO must not have Ukraine,  nor must any EU that, when push comes to shove, proves too short sighted or spineless to do anything but be totally permissive of the American geostrategic agenda in Europe.

1) China has nuclear forces that we are certainly cautious of, and rightfully so.

2) International diplomacy was capable of preventing major wars between Great Powers from 1945 to the present, not counting the proxy wars that all major powers, not just the US, partook of, so this is a slanted reading of history.

3) The US doesn't "control" NATO. This claim is a gross exaggeration.

4) Preventing a Ukraine membership in NATO did not require a bloody war, but now that the Russians are in it, they'll figure that out for themselves, I reckon ... at a high cost.

---

exactly what does a division being destroyed mean?  

Generally speaking, it means that the division can no longer exert combat power enough to influence a battle.

and how much of what is meant is true?   there have been a lot of over the top propaganda claims about casualties inflicted, but my impression is ukrainian exaggeration and falsifications have been more egregious than Russian ones.

It's possible that the Ukrainians are exaggerating, but given the tide of events the last couple of weeks, and given the numerous and amateurish supply issues the RF Army has faced since the war's beginning, it is believable.

Did you read the article?

---

It's what their units are actually designed for.  A western style (read :us) assault was never a credible option for their structure.  The operational difference of us and russian units can be read plainly in the numerical disparity.  An american unit is comprised in such a way as it can attack, fail..reatreat, and defend, without being "destroyed".  Russian units are just big enough to attack and succeed.....or... to offer stiff defense - but there is no margin for failure in either task before destruction.  When units organized that way were ordered to attack, and then failed, it compromised their primary ability to defend as well.

It's the difference between applying combat power at the point of contact, and applying mobility to decide the point of contact.

The organic logistical resources for a Russian division are paltry enough that without combat, they can expect to move maybe 150 miles off the railhead/jump-off before having to pause or regroup. Without combat. Once they apply their artillery, which is a major part of their ground doctrine, that mileage shrinks.

Here's a detailed look at the issues the RF Army has with organic transport. It's in the context of a Russian invasion of NATO, granted, but it still presents problems in the face of the determined Ukrainian defense we've seen, and bears reading. If you find the time to do so, I'd sure appreciate your ground-pounder's opinion on the points it makes. Its summation:

The Russian army will be hard-pressed to conduct a ground offensive of more than 90 miles beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union without a logistics pause. For NATO, it means it can worry less about a major Russian invasion of the Baltic states or Poland and a greater focus on exploiting Russian logistic challenges by drawing Russian forces further away from their supply depots and targeting chokepoints in the Russian logistic infrastructure and logistic force in general. It also means that Russia is more likely to seize small parts of enemy territory under its logistically sustainable range of 90 miles rather than a major invasion as part of a fait accompli strategy.

From the Russian perspective, it does not appear that they are building their logistic forces with fait accompli or blitzkrieg across Poland in mind. Instead, the Russian government has built an ideal army for their strategy of “Active Defense.” The Russian government has built armed forces highly capable of fighting on home soil or near its frontier and striking deep with long-range fires. However, they are not capable of a sustained ground offensive far beyond Russian railroads without a major logistical halt or a massive mobilization of reserves.

[link above]

Still, it's a vanity project for a dictator who's already reached his "my people don't deserve me" moment...so, there's no amount of reconstituting forces that would be too much for Uncle Vlad.

In for an inch, in for a mile.