RE: Russia and Ukraine
December 24, 2023 at 7:25 pm
(This post was last modified: December 24, 2023 at 7:36 pm by Anomalocaris.)
When the Ukrainian senior commander got into trouble for admitting having run into an stalemate and that a “beautiful break through” can no longer happen, One wonders what could have caused Ukraine to think a meaningful breakthrough was ever possible?
To make a meaningful break through:
First, you have to break in without killing yourself in the process.. What does Ukraine have that would allow it to make penetrations into prepared defenses without heavy casualties? Air cover? No. Overwhelming artillery preparation? No. Invincible tanks? No.
Then you have to grind through. Does Ukraine have stream of men, or tanks, or artillery, combat engineers, to feed into the grinder? No. Are Ukrainian troops demonstrably much more effective in set piece battles? No.
Finally you have to break out. What does ukraine have to break out if it does penetrate all of Russia’s prepared defenses? Does it have more mobile reserves than Russia has, so it can defeat Russian reserves sent to contain it? No. Does it have comprehensive air superiority so it can effectively interdict or hamper deployment of more numerous Russia mobile reserves that is coming to stop it? No. Even if Ukraine made the breakthrough, which it is totally unequipped to do, so what? Ukraine is also not equipped to win the mobile maneuver warfare that will result.
The Ukrainian strategy vision seems to have been the same as Germany’s during the failed Kaiserschalcht offensive in 1918, when Ludendorff didn’t have any clear idea of what a war winning objective might be, but simply relied on launching attack after attack in the hope that through attacks some war winning opportunity will reveal itself. The difference is Ukraine did not enjoy anything like Germany’s numerical superiority in early 1918, not anything like Germany’s tactical and technical superiority in early 1918.
Yet in the end the German army which was in much better relative position and led by much better commanders using effective tactics, squandered its numerical superiority and lost.
To make a meaningful break through:
First, you have to break in without killing yourself in the process.. What does Ukraine have that would allow it to make penetrations into prepared defenses without heavy casualties? Air cover? No. Overwhelming artillery preparation? No. Invincible tanks? No.
Then you have to grind through. Does Ukraine have stream of men, or tanks, or artillery, combat engineers, to feed into the grinder? No. Are Ukrainian troops demonstrably much more effective in set piece battles? No.
Finally you have to break out. What does ukraine have to break out if it does penetrate all of Russia’s prepared defenses? Does it have more mobile reserves than Russia has, so it can defeat Russian reserves sent to contain it? No. Does it have comprehensive air superiority so it can effectively interdict or hamper deployment of more numerous Russia mobile reserves that is coming to stop it? No. Even if Ukraine made the breakthrough, which it is totally unequipped to do, so what? Ukraine is also not equipped to win the mobile maneuver warfare that will result.
The Ukrainian strategy vision seems to have been the same as Germany’s during the failed Kaiserschalcht offensive in 1918, when Ludendorff didn’t have any clear idea of what a war winning objective might be, but simply relied on launching attack after attack in the hope that through attacks some war winning opportunity will reveal itself. The difference is Ukraine did not enjoy anything like Germany’s numerical superiority in early 1918, not anything like Germany’s tactical and technical superiority in early 1918.
Yet in the end the German army which was in much better relative position and led by much better commanders using effective tactics, squandered its numerical superiority and lost.
