OT: Putin's War in Ukraine

[ToughOmbres]

sThanks. That helps explain the lack of infantry support.

I'm still baffled why Russian armor so often operates in such small groups. This video, assuming it's real, is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1594383471874637826cxt=HHwWhIC8zb_UsaAsAAAA

That Russian tank is completely on its own. What was it's crew, and unit commander, thinking

-

The thrashing elite Russian airborne units received in Chechnya seems to be all but forgotten. Indeed the Russian high command seems not to have remembered anything since 1943 with regard to planning and logistics. The one consistently Russian "thing" throughout the conflict is flinging artillery hard and heavy at Ukraine.
If supplies are so low Russia is buying ordnance from North Korea things must be incredibly bad. Suppose the plutocrats Putin placed in charge of defense industries supplied a few tens of thousands of shells and pocketed the rest. Wonder how many of the plutocrats and kleptocrats will have unfortunate "accidents"

[chico20854]

An article from the Washington Post about the shellacking one Russian regular brigade has received.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...mated-ukraine/

[castlebravo92]

The Ukraine war is exposing how bad the Soviet/Russian model of war is against forces that are a generation or two ahead in only a few critical areas.

When Russia initially invaded in 2014, they pretty much wiped the floor with the Ukrainians, especially once the active Russian military units got involved.

Of course, Ukraine didn't have much of a military at that point, and the military it had was in disarray due to the Orange Revolution, and it was, at that point, still operating on the old ex-Soviet model.

Post Crimea/Donbas invasion, the US and the UK, among others, sent in quite a lot of technical and training assistance, and, apparently, unlike what happened in Afghanistan and the troops we tried to train there, the Ukrainians took to it seriously.

They also apparently were watching and learning from the Armenia-Azerbaijan war in 2021, where in the previous instance Armenia had pretty decisively defeated Azerbaijan, and then in 2021, with the acquisition of Turkish drones by Azerbaijan, the tables were turned and Armenia lost about 1/3 of it's tanks and artillery in a very short amount of time. This conflict was a real eye opener to the risk and deadliness of drone warfare and the utility of suicide drones.

Russia, on the other hand, wasn't apparently paying attention to anything except for how much vodka they could drink and how much stuff they could steal.

Logistically, they ran out of gas 100 km in (which, anecdotally, was one of my friend's experience with Russian peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia - they were always running out of gas and having to be rescued). Apparently their plan was for their Spetsnaz teams to take out Zelensky, their armored columns would roll down the highway on a Sunday stroll and refuel at gas stations along the way, and that would be that. And there was no plan B.

When that failed abjectly, and unable to assemble overwhelming force against Ukraine like they did in Georgia, they resorted to the tried and true tactic they used sort of successfully in Syria - flatten everything with air strikes and artillery. Except Ukraine air defense was still effective, and Russian SEAD not so much, and so things devolved into artillery duels and standoff strikes with cruise missiles and - when those ran low - S300s re-programmed for ground attack.

It was reported that Russian artillery expenditure was/is such that they were using in 2 days the equivalent of the entirety of UK's munition stocks...the war has been going on for 10 months. Sort of puts an exclamation point on how all of NATO except for the US was not capable of sustained high tempo warfare even before letting their militaries rot after the end of the Cold War (this point was further proved in the NATO action against Libya, when a multi-nation NATO coalition was dependent on US munitions to attack a third-rate North African military involved in a civil war).

Based on real world Russian performance, I made the comment a while back to some friends that Russia would have trouble dealing with a single US National Guard division. Certainly the NG division would be trained better and equipped better than even the most elite divisional equivalent in Russia. I do believe that Poland would be able to decisively defeat Russia today (and once Poland takes delivery of all the advanced Korean tanks and HIMARS equivalents, they'll be the most powerful non-nuclear land force in Europe).

[Raellus]

The Ukraine war has proven pretty decisively that the modern Russian military kinda sucks.

It seems that every time the Russians attempt a "Thunder Run" type, "precision", go-for-the-jugular offensive, they fail miserably. Whenever they try to be like US military of 1991-2003, they just can't pull it off. Poor training, poor command structure, poor leadership, poor logistics, and piss poor operational planning and tactics. When the Russians employ Soviet era (1941-1989) brute force tactics (setting aside their COIN war in Afghanistan), they tend to do fairly well. When they stray from what they know- the old tried and true- they tend to struggle mightily. They make a much better nail-studded club than scalpel.

That said, I'd be careful about drawing conclusions about the Cold War Soviet military based on the current conflict in Ukraine. That would be like comparing the Dallas Cowboys of the 2000s with the Cowboys of the early-to-mid 1990s. Same ownership, but too many other variables in play for it to be true apples-to-apples. I still think a strong case can be made for significantly better Soviet performance in WWIII. So as not to drag this thread OT, I'll leave this here for those who wish to continue a discussion of the hypothetical.

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.phpt=897

-

[Bestbrian]

Nice recap of the Ukraine debacle in today's Times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...s-ukraine.html

[castlebravo92]

The Ukraine war has proven pretty decisively that the modern Russian military kinda sucks.

It seems that every time the Russians attempt a "Thunder Run" type, "precision", go-for-the-jugular offensive, they fail miserably. Whenever they try to be like US military of 1991-2003, they just can't pull it off. Poor training, poor command structure, poor leadership, poor logistics, and piss poor operational planning and tactics. When the Russians employ Soviet era (1941-1989) brute force tactics (setting aside their COIN war in Afghanistan), they tend to do fairly well. When they stray from what they know- the old tried and true- they tend to struggle mightily. They make a much better nail-studded club than scalpel.

That said, I'd be careful about drawing conclusions about the Cold War Soviet military based on the current conflict in Ukraine. That would be like comparing the Dallas Cowboys of the 2000s with the Cowboys of the early-to-mid 1990s. Same ownership, but too many other variables in play for it to be true apples-to-apples. I still think a strong case can be made for significantly better Soviet performance in WWIII. So as not to drag this thread OT, I'll leave this here for those who wish to continue a discussion of the hypothetical.

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.phpt=897

-

There's a ton of caveats in everything ;-).

First off, my comments aren't intended as criticism for the T2K background. After all, it was written in the mid to late 80s, for the most part, and that was really just when the US started pulling away from the USSR in land warfare capabilities (naval and air power, of course, were always probably clearly in the US ledger).

Secondly, some of Russia's current problems are demographic. Russia has 144 million people to the US's 330 million people in 2022. But in 1988, the USSR actually had 2 million more people than the USA did...

Additionally, 2022 Russia has the economic profile of a developing country (exports natural resources, imports manufactured and high tech goods), whereas in the late 80s, it had the economic profile of an industrial economy (importing raw materials like food, exported manufactured goods).

And an obvious difference between today and 30-40 years ago is sheer throw weight and the numbers of men and equipment the USSR could throw at a problem.

But in the real world, their logistical and planning incompetence suggests that they never really had much in the way of non-nuclear offensive capability. I was personally shocked when the Russians did as bad as they did in Ukraine. I thought the Russians had a strong enough military to conventionally defeat the Ukrainians, but didn't think they mobilized enough forces to successfully occupy the country. I was right about the 2nd part, and very, very wrong on the first part.

[Raellus]

First off, my comments aren't intended as criticism for the T2K background. After all, it was written in the mid to late 80s, for the most part, and that was really just when the US started pulling away from the USSR in land warfare capabilities (naval and air power, of course, were always probably clearly in the US ledger).

I wasn't addressing your comments specifically. It was more of a general admonition and excuse to link to another thread.

But in the real world, their logistical and planning incompetence suggests that they never really had much in the way of non-nuclear offensive capability.

I think Russia's military failings in Ukraine are largely the result of an overly sanguine Plan A, with no apparent Plan B in place when Plan A failed miserably. By the time the Russians pivoted, they'd lost nearly every advantage other than numerical superiority.

In a late Cold War era land war in Europe scenario (ie T2k), I imagine that the Soviets would have multiple contingency plans in place, all of which had been war-gamed out ahead of time. Likewise, I think their logistics would be a lot more squared away as well. They'd probably still be expecting a rather brief war, but this one on a massive scale, so they'd be prepared to move large quantities of men, fuel, and ammunition over long distances on a fairly broad front from day 1. In the Ukraine War, the Russian thinking was that they'd be in Kiev in less than a week and that, as they say, would be the end of that.

-

[castlebravo92]

I wasn't addressing your comments specifically. It was more of a general admonition and excuse to link to another thread.



I think Russia's military failings in Ukraine are largely the result of an overly sanguine Plan A, with no apparent Plan B in place when Plan A failed miserably. By the time the Russians pivoted, they'd lost nearly every advantage other than numerical superiority.

In a late Cold War era land war in Europe scenario (ie T2k), I imagine that the Soviets would have multiple contingency plans in place, all of which had been war-gamed out ahead of time. Likewise, I think their logistics would be a lot more squared away as well. They'd probably still be expecting a rather brief war, but this one on a massive scale, so they'd be prepared to move large quantities of men, fuel, and ammunition over long distances on a fairly broad front from day 1. In the Ukraine War, the Russian thinking was that they'd be in Kiev in less than a week and that, as they say, would be the end of that.

-

The reason why I said the USSR probably would have struggled on the offensive...and forgive me, I forget where I read it, but there was some analysis that the USSR and Russia is hugely dependent on rail for their supplies, and they have _aways_ had insufficient truck transport at the divisional and corps level to supply offensive operations very far from an intact railhead (and by very far, I mean more than a hundred km). Interdict a rail supply line, and they logistics basically unravels in a hurry.

Additionally, overall truck capacity is something the USSR didn't have enough of (nor does Russia), which is why they resorted to stealing vehicles very early on in Ukraine and pulling civilian vehicles into military service for supply.

This logistical constraint is something that gets worse the more troops, tanks, and artillery you throw at an opponent. I think this is the fundamental problem holding back a Russian general mobilization right now. More troops doesn't fix their original core problem, which is insufficient logistical support to actually conquer Ukraine (of course, now that they have lost 100k of their best troops dead, and most of their modern AFVs, they have other problems).

Their current strategy of press-ganging men off the streets, handing them a gun and 1,000 rounds of ammunition and having them shoot for a day as their mobilization training is something you would expect to see in Berlin near the Fuhrer bunker at the tail end of the Nazi regime in terms of desperation.

[Ursus Maior]

Logistically, they ran out of gas 100 km in (which, anecdotally, was one of my friend's experience with Russian peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia - they were always running out of gas and having to be rescued). Apparently their plan was for their Spetsnaz teams to take out Zelensky, their armored columns would roll down the highway on a Sunday stroll and refuel at gas stations along the way, and that would be that. And there was no plan B.

The absurd thing is that this has been known to be their limit for ages. The Soviet army was as much dependent on railways as the Russian is now. Of course, they had more trucks, but in the end, this has been their Achilles heel since Word War Two.

What's new, or let's say: what's more extreme than during the 1980s, is the rampant corruption and the mistrust Putin and his Kremlin junta have in the armed forces. Apparently, the WaPo article above reiterates that well, front line troops were made believe they went into their attack positions for an exercise. As is common in the armed forces of Russia, this meant, they sold off every drip of extra fuel and all extra supplies they were handed on the black market. Then, when they got the order to invade, which only happened on the day of the invasion (!!!) or the night before, they were already tight on fuel, food and spare parts.

Let's not kid ourselves: This alone makes such an endeavor impossible. Even the US and their coalition forces would have had much more difficulties beating Iraq in 2003 (or 1991 for that matter) had they gone in with - let's say - 50 percent POL, food and spare parts than 100 percent or 125 percent. Now, add to that all other Russian problems, logistical limits to around 100 km off the last railhead, bad leadership, unprepared troops, faulty tires from cheap Chinese suppliers and of course: a determined defender, and this absolutely has to end in a disaster.

Also, Russia had - as mentioned - not cared to develop a Plan B. Going into a country of 40 million people with less than 200.000 troops can only work, if you manage that decapitation strike. Otherwise, countries of that size and population, especially concentrated into huge cities, need millions of troops, not hundreds of thousands. The German Wehrmacht went for Kyiv with 544,000 men in 1941 and that attack was separate from the thrust along the coastline of the Black Sea, which was largely conducted y 14 Romanian divisions and supported by the German 11th Army (Operation Mnchen) for a further total of more than 325,000 men. And still the Axis forces lost upwards of 100,000 men between late June (start of Operation Barbarossa) and late September.

[Ursus Maior]

The reason why I said the USSR probably would have struggled on the offensive...and forgive me, I forget where I read it, but there was some analysis that the USSR and Russia is hugely dependent on rail for their supplies, and they have _aways_ had insufficient truck transport at the divisional and corps level to supply offensive operations very far from an intact railhead (and by very far, I mean more than a hundred km). Interdict a rail supply line, and they logistics basically unravels in a hurry.

Additionally, overall truck capacity is something the USSR didn't have enough of (nor does Russia), which is why they resorted to stealing vehicles very early on in Ukraine and pulling civilian vehicles into military service for supply.

This is what it boils down to. And that in an invasion, where the enemy - aka the Ukrainian defenders - can be counted on prepping bridges for demolition, plotting artillery strikes on them in advance and have a history of partisan warfare.

Russia never had enough trucks, not even during the 1980s in it's USSR-incarnation. The military system was always rotten, corrupt and ridden by false reports of readiness. These problems just enhanced by orders of magnitude during Putin's kleptocracy, which - unfortunately for the Russian soldiers - came after the complete and total collapse of the Yeltsin era, that already saw new orders of magnitude in corruption.

This is now way to win a war and we saw that already during World War Two. Western and Russian WW2-enthusiasts like to forget the sheer amount of logistical supply the USSR got from the US, UK and Canada. It's not so much the tanks and planes that saved their collectivist butts back then - though these helped a great deal - but the sheer amount of general supply items and especially trucks (which is exactly, what Russia lacks today!). Take this official list: https://ru.usembassy.gov/world-war-i...ion-1941-1945/

• 400,000 jeeps & trucks
• 14,000 airplanes
• 8,000 tractors
• 13,000 tanks
• 1.5 million blankets
• 15 million pairs of army boots
• 107,000 tons of cotton
• 2.7 million tons of petrol products
• 4.5 million tons of food

The British delivered a further:

• 3,000+ Hurricane aircraft
• 4,000+ other aircraft
• 27 naval vessels
• 5,218 tanks (including 1,380 Valentines from Canada)
• 5,000+ anti-tank guns
• 4,020 ambulances and trucks
• 323 machinery trucks (mobile vehicle workshops equipped with generators and all the welding and power tools required to perform heavy servicing)
• 1,212 Universal Carriers and Loyd Carriers (with another 1,348 from Canada)
• 1,721 motorcycles
• L1.15bn ($1.55bn) worth of aircraft engines
• 1,474 radar sets
• 4,338 radio sets
• 600 naval radar and sonar sets
• Hundreds of naval guns
• 15*million pairs of boots

That's 30 million pairs of boots and over 404,000 trucks and ambulances no Soviet factory had to produce. The Soviet Army literally walked and drove to victory with Western help alone.

[Vespers War]

It's also worth noting that Lend-Lease locomotive supplies were a major factor in the USSR being able to switch its locomotive factories to tank production. The USSR built 354 locomotives in 1941. For the entire rest of the war, they produced 92. Lend-Lease delivered 1,911 locomotives to the USSR. Without those, their needs for rail logistics would have required them to keep locomotive factories building locomotives instead of tanks.

On the modern end of things, I think the return of trench warfare has been mildly surprising but makes sense. Both sides have large forces with significant differences in level of training within their forces, so lesser-trained soldiers can hold ground within fortifications to discourage opportunistic attempts to break through them, requiring more significant resource investment that is more likely to be spotted in advance. A TDF or a group of mobiks still might not be able to completely stop a determined attack on their own, but they can slow it down enough for units with more training and equipment to reinforce the position.

I think the US has done better with anticipating drones than Russia, but there are still some things that were missed. The low-end attack drones, like TB2 or Shahed or Orlan, are things that were mostly ignored on the US side in favor of more capable systems. But those drones have an additional effect in that a lot of the air-defense systems capable of taking them down use missiles that are more expensive than the drone. If it costs more to destroy a drone than to build a drone, over time the economics favor the cheap drone. I think the eventual counter to this will be smarter cannon rounds for air defense artillery, like some of the 30, 35, and 40mm rounds that have started entering service but (AFAIK) have not been provided to Ukraine. I also think we may see more SHORAD platforms that have a combined gun and missile armament like Tunguska and Pantsir (although hopefully more effective than Pantsir, which seems to have performed atrociously in this conflict). Something mounting a 30mm or 35mm autocannon with modern flak rounds and a 4 or 6 of whatever IR-guided missile replaces Stinger would be about what I'm thinking we may see around the end of the decade. SHORAD has been oriented towards taking down fast jets for the last few decades, and will need something extra to handle cheap, slow drones that cost less than a missile.

[Bestbrian]

I think the US has done better with anticipating drones than Russia, but there are still some things that were missed. The low-end attack drones, like TB2 or Shahed or Orlan, are things that were mostly ignored on the US side in favor of more capable systems. But those drones have an additional effect in that a lot of the air-defense systems capable of taking them down use missiles that are more expensive than the drone. If it costs more to destroy a drone than to build a drone, over time the economics favor the cheap drone. I think the eventual counter to this will be smarter cannon rounds for air defense artillery, like some of the 30, 35, and 40mm rounds that have started entering service but (AFAIK) have not been provided to Ukraine. I also think we may see more SHORAD platforms that have a combined gun and missile armament like Tunguska and Pantsir (although hopefully more effective than Pantsir, which seems to have performed atrociously in this conflict). Something mounting a 30mm or 35mm autocannon with modern flak rounds and a 4 or 6 of whatever IR-guided missile replaces Stinger would be about what I'm thinking we may see around the end of the decade. SHORAD has been oriented towards taking down fast jets for the last few decades, and will need something extra to handle cheap, slow drones that cost less than a missile.

Give it an all-weather target acquisition and tracking system while also integrating it in to the upper echelon air defense network, and Bob's your uncle. Fires ready available ammo, uses off the shelf components, requires minimal training, and can be mounted to a myriad of platforms. Instead, we'll probably wait ten years for Son of DIVAD.

[kato13]

Does the US still have cluster munitions for the MLRS/HIMARS

When I am hearing stories of an upcoming force of 300k coming over the Belorussian border, I am remembering T2k talking about Assault Breaker system (precursor to the MGM-140_ATACMS) ripping up the Soviet units rolling into Chinese Territory.

I know the US , Ukraine, and Russia all have not signed the CCM and Russia used them early in the invasion.

I get why the world is against them, but this seems like a perfect opportunity for their use.

[Vespers War]

Does the US still have cluster munitions for the MLRS/HIMARS

When I am hearing stories of an upcoming force of 300k coming over the Belorussian border, I am remembering T2k talking about Assault Breaker system (precursor to the MGM-140_ATACMS) ripping up the Soviet units rolling into Chinese Territory.

I know the US , Ukraine, and Russia all have not signed the CCM and Russia used them early in the invasion.

I get why the world is against them, but this seems like a perfect opportunity for their use.

The M26 cluster MLRS rockets were removed from service in June 2009 per an order signed in July 2008 by George W. Bush. The current Alternative Warhead rounds (M30A1 and M30A2) use tungsten fragments to get a similar effect without the risk of unexploded ordnance. There might be some that survived destruction by the time Donald Trump revoked Bush's order in 2017, but since the last of them were manufactured in 2001 and the shelf life for the rocket is 25 years, any survivors are getting pretty close to end-of-life.

The cluster ATACMS have all had their warheads replaced with unitary high explosive warheads. The older ones also had GPS added (M39A1 already had GPS, M39 did not, they're all now M57E1 standard).

More likely might be getting Korean KM26A2 rockets, which were license-built until 2011 (when the license expired and wasn't renewed, possibly because of the standing order from former President Bush).

[kato13]

More likely might be getting Korean KM26A2 rockets, which were license-built until 2011 (when the license expired and wasn't renewed, possibly because of the standing order from former President Bush).

Would be nice if that license was (possibly secretly) renewed. Know it will take some time to spool up but it would allow the Koreans to spare more of their current stocks (I have read that 288 were going to Poland early next year.)

Thanks for the info. Our denizens never disappoint me when I am looking for details on these types of subjects.