Russia and Ukraine

[Rev. Rye]

-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.

And in this case, we have a case of asymmetrical warfare. And if the locals buy into the premise that they can't let the other guy win, well, just look at almost everything the US military has done since the Korean War (with the exception of the First Gulf War) or even just watch this movie (as long as you're not in a place where it's blocked, like France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, or Korea):



Cut off one head of the hydra, you're going to get two more in its place and, sooner or later, the only real endgames for the occupying forces are genocide or retreating. And, unlike Algeria, Ukraine has the support of everyone that isn't Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Belarus, Iran, Syria, North Korea, or Eritrea.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Another article:

For the last couple of weeks, Russian forces have attempted to advance from areas in the south towards Zaporizhzhia. At the same time, Russian forces have been trying to advance south from Kharkiv. The logical operational goal here would be the capture of the city of Dnipro. This would give Russia control over a large proportion of eastern Ukraine.

If the Russians were to pause their northern and southern operations, and reinforce their ground forces in the east, it is also possible that they might also be able to surround and destroy Ukraine's military forces defending this part of the country.

This would be a major loss for the Ukrainian military, and significant victory for the Russians. To achieve this, the Russians will need to improve their battlefield leadership, combined arms tactics, rear area security, logistics, communications security and a range of other basic military skills. But the Russians have showed the capacity to adapt in some areas of their campaign; we should not discount this possibility.

Therefore, in the coming weeks, look to the eastern theatre of this war. We may see a significant Russian offensive in this region. Not only might this be the military victory Putin has been seeking, but it would provide bargaining power to achieve a political settlement favourable to Russian in any ceasefire negotiations.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-29/r.../100944004

It looks to me like the Russians realize they bit off more than they can chew, and are thus refocusing their offensive on smaller, more attainable goals.

And --

Russia fired at least 70 missiles on targets across Ukraine on Saturday, the most since invading the country last month, The Insider has reported.

The massive attack came on the same day that President Joe Biden gave a speech in Warsaw in which he slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin for launching the invasion and for the viciousness of the war.

The Insider, a Russian investigative journalist project, reported that 52 missiles were fired from Black Sea Fleet warships in Sevastopol and at least 18 from Belarus, with the total amount spent on the missiles and the logistical cost reaching some half a billion dollars that day.

Despite the massive Russian attack, Ukraine's air defense also set a record for this war in the number of missiles it shot down in one day, as only eight of the 70 missiles fired by Russia engaged their targets, according to The Insider.

Among those shot down were several cruise missiles, suggesting that Ukraine has recently gained the ability to bring down such missiles, Defense World reported.

In addition, Russian missiles are failing to explode at a significant rate, which experts speculate could be due to lax quality control as the Russian army hastens to get them to the war front.

https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk...z7Or7Oja00

That's some expensive messaging.

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

Good read.  

From a ground pounders perspective, the way that russia has been trying (and apparently failing) to solve those problems is a dream come true.  Even with a halt they seem ineffective, as that convoy sitting on the road made clear for these many weeks.

Say they managed to solve that basic challenge of getting enough trucks (which they appear to be trying to do by seizing vehicles at buy here pay here lots......) - there's still the issue of inexperienced armor crews trying to turn out and run from close infantry ambush as they lead those formations down skinny roads - that ends in tears and broken metal and no supplies delivered.  Of russian infantry being too busy looting commandeered civilian homes to properly support their armor that ends up destroyed or abandoned in a field worth precisely jack shit being towed by fierce ukrainian..checks notes...farm tractors.  Of the complete lack of close air support.....which blows my fucking mind.    

I was completely wrong in my expectations at the outset - but, in fairness, I'd been told a whole bunch of shit about russian equipment and soldiers and tactics that may have been representative of the russian forces sometime in the 90's when it was all put together...but it's clear that -that- russian army can be found nowhere on the battlefield in ukraine.  I could have saved myself trouble typing much of this by saying that from a ground pounders perspective, russian forces..operating the way they have been... are a loot pinata at a murder party. That shit makes mech infantry rock hard.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I was completely wrong in my expectations at the outset - but, in fairness, I'd been told a whole bunch of shit about russian equipment and soldiers and tactics that may have been representative of the russian forces sometime in the 90's when it was all put together...but it's clear that -that- russian army can be found nowhere on the battlefield in ukraine.  I could have saved myself trouble typing much of this by saying that from a ground pounders perspective, russian forces..operating the way they have been... are a loot pinata at a murder party.  That shit makes mech infantry rock hard.

The incompetence we've seen on display this last month is stunning, to me.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I was completely wrong in my expectations at the outset - but, in fairness, I'd been told a whole bunch of shit about russian equipment and soldiers and tactics that may have been representative of the russian forces sometime in the 90's when it was all put together...but it's clear that -that- russian army can be found nowhere on the battlefield in ukraine.  I could have saved myself trouble typing much of this by saying that from a ground pounders perspective, russian forces..operating the way they have been... are a loot pinata at a murder party.  That shit makes mech infantry rock hard.

The incompetence we've seen on display this last month is stunning, to me.

Even if Russia had more-than-competent field commanders, their invasion force would still be in the weeds because their equipment and logistics are shit. They attempted a half-arsed blitzkrieg with four different lines of assault using armour and artillery that hadn’t been properly maintained and couldn’t be reliably supported.

Boru

[Pat Mustard]

You're too kind, thanks.

I get your point about SEAD, though I think that would be very difficult anyway given that most Ukrainian AD is in the form of MANPADs. For this reason, I was thinking more along the lines of attacking Ukrainian airfields harboring combat planes or repair facilities with stand-off missiles in the opening minutes of the war.

They may well be husbanding their more advanced aircraft in order to address any potential NATO intervention, too.

I'd have to go digging through the toobs, but one of the people I watch semi-regularly from before the war when he was doing his analysis pointed out the fact that the Russian airforce are doing all their sorties at low altitude, indicating that quite a lot of Ukrainian long range and high altitude air defence is still active. They picked off the fixed point radar installations early on, but that's no real achievement, any airforce with superiority in numbers should be able to do that. But Russia look to be absolutely cack at taking out mobile air defence and at taking out airfields.

PS I'm sceptical about the idea that Russia are holding back their more advanced aircraft because, a) they know NATO won't involve themselves directly without nukes falling, and b) they've put in their best units and equipment in every other department (which got absolutely spankered as a result) so why keep their planes back (unless they've nobody to fly them)?

---

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:

Good read.  

From a ground pounders perspective, the way that russia has been trying (and apparently failing) to solve those problems is a dream come true.  Even with a halt they seem ineffective, as that convoy sitting on the road made clear for these many weeks.

Say they managed to solve that basic challenge of getting enough trucks (which they appear to be trying to do by seizing vehicles at buy here pay here lots......) - there's still the issue of inexperienced armor crews trying to turn out and run from close infantry ambush as they lead those formations down skinny roads - that ends in tears and broken metal and no supplies delivered.  Of russian infantry being too busy looting commandeered civilian homes to properly support their armor that ends up destroyed or abandoned in a field worth precisely jack shit being towed by fierce ukrainian..checks notes...farm tractors.  Of the complete lack of close air support.....which blows my fucking mind.    

I was completely wrong in my expectations at the outset - but, in fairness, I'd been told a whole bunch of shit about russian equipment and soldiers and tactics that may have been representative of the russian forces sometime in the 90's when it was all put together...but it's clear that -that- russian army can be found nowhere on the battlefield in ukraine.  I could have saved myself trouble typing much of this by saying that from a ground pounders perspective, russian forces..operating the way they have been... are a loot pinata at a murder party.  That shit makes mech infantry rock hard.

John Deere must be absolutely loving it.  As this war has proven, it's not spear beats tank (), but tractor beats tank.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

You're too kind, thanks.

I get your point about SEAD, though I think that would be very difficult anyway given that most Ukrainian AD is in the form of MANPADs. For this reason, I was thinking more along the lines of attacking Ukrainian airfields harboring combat planes or repair facilities with stand-off missiles in the opening minutes of the war.

They may well be husbanding their more advanced aircraft in order to address any potential NATO intervention, too.

I'd have to go digging through the toobs, but one of the people I watch semi-regularly from before the war when he was doing his analysis pointed out the fact that the Russian airforce are doing all their sorties at low altitude, indicating that quite a lot of Ukrainian long range and high altitude air defence is still active.  They picked off the fixed point radar installations early on, but that's no real achievement, any airforce with superiority in numbers should be able to do that.  But Russia look to be absolutely cack at taking out mobile air defence and at taking out airfields.

PS I'm sceptical about the idea that Russia are holding back their more advanced aircraft because, a) they know NATO won't involve themselves directly without nukes falling, and b) they've put in their best units and equipment in every other department (which got absolutely spankered as a result) so why keep their planes back (unless they've nobody to fly them)?

I’m also skeptical about the holding back the best aircraft thing. They expected to take Ukraine in 100 hours. Even with the worst intelligence imaginable, you don’t make a plan like that with your second stringers.

A more likely explanation is that the majority of their attack aircraft have been mothballed and neglected for more than a decade, just like their ground assault vehicles. So, they don’t have the advanced aircraft to spare.

Boru

[Pat Mustard]

One last thing, I thought even before the war that Russia would be in trouble 50 miles outside their borders, because in any serious operation (remember Chechnya, Georgia and Syria was largely them against defenceless civilians) they didn't have the logistics capability, experience or even the economy to keep going for longer than a few days.

I was full confident Putain wouldn't invade, not because I thought he was a master strategist, but because I thought he had the basic cop-on to know he couldn't win in any meaningful manner (little did I realise that Putain's Hitler complex was galaxy sized). And I'd even forgotten about rasputitsa when I made the "can't fight 50 miles outside its borders" predicition.

[HappySkeptic]

I'll wait a few years for the Netflix documentary on how Russia screwed up the invasion.

[The Grand Nudger]

John Deere must be absolutely loving it.  As this war has proven, it's not spear beats tank (), but tractor beats tank.

The ads could write themselves.  What we might be seeing is one of the big shifts in power that have happened over and over throughout history between maneuver and infantry units.  Infantry and cavalry have been going back and forth since the first schmuck climbed on a horse.